Dr. Sam Amadi, who sits atop the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the agency saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the nation’s power sector, holds the view that lack of sustained investment, corruption, as well as political intrigues are to blame for the lingering crisis in the power sector.
Nigerians are not happy over the perennial power crisis in the country. Why has the power crisis remained intractable for so long?
When you talk about what is happening in the power sector and what we should be doing, the first thing I’ll tell you is to say some of the things we have done and what I think we should be doing and how to go forward. All of us know what has happened to the power sector in Nigeria. We are a country of 160million people. We are a large country with a large population. As at today, all our installed capacity is slightly above 6, 000 mega watts of electricity. May be if we add the ones that are not working, we can have about 9, 000mw. South Africa is about 50-60million people, yet they have about 40,000mw.
I recall that one of the last good power plants we had under Shehu Shagari, Egbin Power Station, alone used to generate about 1, 200megawatts but because we failed to keep up the tempo of activity in the sector, we are now suffering the dire consequences. If we created three more Egbins, we won’t be in this situation by now.
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