The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has opined that the constant outage of power faced in the country is detrimental to the development of Nigeria and its economy, News About Nigeria reports.
He made this known in an article titled “The Collapsing Electricity Sector,” lamenting that the country is too endowed to be a nation of generators and to be trapped in darkness.
Obi noted that it is a sign of a low level of managerial capability that the entire nation can be plunged into total darkness for a reasonable period, adding that it portrayed a lack of diligent attention, as the causes of these outages, such as fire outbreaks, can be avoided.
He further mentioned that the major challenges of the power generation sector are the lack of a regular supply of gas, which stems from the failure of the government in the last eight years to provide adequate gas infrastructure facilities, the weak commerciality of gas to power, and failure to control angry youths, leading to vandalism.
According to him, there has also been a lack of effective coordination between TCN and discos, stressing that this has led to low private-sector investments.
He therefore called on the Federal Government to constitute a technical task force of real professionals who will present a diagnosis of the crisis in the sector and get to work to correct it.
According to the former Anambra State governor, doing this will rapidly improve power availability in the short term while the government develops clarity to articulate an integrated national electricity policy, which will ensure that there is a rapid and expansive delivery of reliable, adequate, and affordable electricity in the country.
