As if to call the bluff of President Muhammadu Buhari’s pronouncement to generate 10,000 megawatts, MW, by 2019, output from the generating plants dropped to as low as 2,841MW by mid-day, yesterday.
The Federal Government has failed on its promise to achieve the target of 6,000 Mega Watts (MW) of electricity generation last December Data from the Nigerian Systems Operations Department of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, website, www.nsong.org, indicated that the situation had gone even worse with generation dropping again to 2,841.90MW as at 12:42pm, yesterday.
The President’s declaration, Tuesday has attracted a lot of scepticisms from various stakeholders, who argued that it was a mission impossible given the current state of the Nigerian power sector, which is characterised by weak and obsolete system. They noted further that 10,000MW was not a new power target, considering that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had also touted the same capacity target for 2010, which never came to pass till date.
Specifically, they argued that 2019 was exit period of the current administration and, therefore, the President would not be held responsible in the event of failure to achieve the 10,000MW. They added that to achieve the set target by 2019, will mean generating at least 3,333MW every year over the next three years.
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