A professor of engineering, Mr Olu Lafe, has faulted the implementation of the Nigerian Content Policy by the National Council on Power, which is expected to guide the localisation of operations in Nigeria’s power sector.
“2010 the policy was put together, we were clearly on our way, but at the end of the day, the take off has been a little bit bumpy… There were targets that were set and these targets were never met”, he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday.
He further added that the road map to power report, put together by former Minister of Power, Prof Barth Nnaji, states that “the poor in this country (Nigeria) is carrying the bulk of the weight” as they spend “N80 per kilowatt hour (kWh); which is very expensive.
“Americans are paying something in the range of 10 Cents, which is less than N16 per kWh”, while “ordinary Nigerians are paying N50 per kWh for energy because of self generation”.
He warned, “There is no way we can continue the way we are doing things and if we don’t solve the power problem in this country, we are going nowhere”.
Prof Lafe, who noted that there is a need for the country to create industries where foreign companies will like to build and homegrown companies will be encouraged thrive, insisted that power is key to attracting the foreign industries and encouraging the local industries.
He urged the Nigerian authorities to rethink the (power) architecture, as “there are ideas that we can bring on it that will almost guarantee success for us going forward”. He advised them to “avoid single point of failure” and concentrate on “distributed generation.
“When you do distributed generation, you build a micro grid around the generation; you actually build plants where they are going to be used for power generation.
“I will recommend creating multiple power companies; at least one power company for one local government area”, he said, warning that the power problem will not be solved by gigantic companies.
He further noted that the present power generating plan should be maintained but advocated for the “need to begin to build small distribution generation plants close to where they are”.
He also advocated the use of solar energy, natural and bio gasses as other measures to improve the power problems facing Nigeria.
Prof Lafe stated that Nigeria has an opportunity to go past the recurring issues of power failure because some of the new ideas of making the American power sector robust are being written by Nigerians.
He also noted that the Ministry of Power is expected to send a draft policy on Nigerian content in the power sector to the National Assembly for legislation and the policy will amongst others, require states and local governments across the country to maximise municipal wastes generated within their environments in promoting sustainable waste-to-power projects that will be embedded within their localities.
He commended the President for taking a leadership role in the power sector, adding that road map to power report which analysed “where things have been, where things were as at 2010 and where we need to go, was a brilliant job”.
