The project to achieve 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021 and 11,000 megawatts by 2023 will not totally address the challenges in the nation’s power sector, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.
President Buhari stated this in a series of tweets on Monday shortly after he witnessed an agreement signing ceremony between the Nigerian government and German-based company, Siemens AG at the State House in Abuja.
He said, “Our intention is to ensure that our cooperation is structured under a Government-to-Government framework. No middlemen will be involved so that we can achieve value for money for Nigerians.”
“This project will not be the solution to all our problems in the power sector. However, I am confident that it has the potential to address a significant amount of the challenges we have faced for decades,” he added.
The President was hopeful that the improvement of the power situation would enhance investors’ confidence, create jobs, reduce the cost of doing business, and encourage more economic growth in the country.
He explained that the priority of his administration was to boost the economy, starting with more improved supply of power that would create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
President Buhari told the management team of Siemens led by the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Joe Kaeser, that electricity remains critical to the development of the nation.
He noted that Nigeria was blessed with significant natural gas, hydro and solar resources for power generation that could be utilised to achieve reliable, affordable and quality electricity supply necessary for economic growth, industrialisation, and poverty alleviation.
The President said previous governments had explored state-funded solutions through the National Independent Power Projects, and also explored the installation of large emergency power projects.
He added that the constraints remained at the transmission and distribution systems, saying he had directed a team to ask Siemens and Nigerian stakeholders to first focus on fixing the transmission and distribution infrastructure, especially around economic centres where jobs were created.
In his remarks, Mr Kaeser said the company would work hard to improve the electricity situation in Nigeria as the country’s economy would only achieve sustainable development with adequate power supply.
He also promised to personally supervise the “Implementation Agreement for the Nigerian Electrification Roadmap”, which also involves the German government.
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