Sunday, June 10, 2012

UP NEPA

The Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, while speaking at the Ministerial Platform organised by the Ministry of Information said that the Federal Government was working hard to increase power supply in the country to about 40,000 megawatts by 2020 and about 135,000MW by 2030. This statement though, reminds me of similar empty promises that have been made by previous governments, the funniest, the caption of an old newspaper comes to mind, where government gave NEPA a final deadline to provide steady power supply by 1986, sadly 25 years later we are still in total blackout and am currently surviving solely on my generator. This situation has saddened both you and I,that is,if you are a Nigerian or you reside in Nigeria, it's financially tasking to run generators for our homes and businesses, not to mention the bribe payed to the petrol station attendant so he would sell you petrol in a keg, yet our govt. is blind to this act of daylight robbery being perpetuated against Nigerians. Prof. Barth added that efforts at improving the power sector have not yielded the required results due to the N400 billion debt by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to various creditors, as well as N24billion owed the multinational oil and gas companies for gas supplied for National Independent Power Projects. I however believe that corruption and legacies of inefficient governments is the cause of our power problem. Trillions of naira has allegedly been pumped into the power sector but it's evident that those funds were diverted into private pockets,because so many Nigerians still don't understand why there is no light. Am sure you must have realized that the tariff payed by Nigerians for power has increased even though the product is scarcely available. I use this opportunity to make a call to government, stop the propaganda, if you would give us light, give us or leave and let's be satisfied that you failed. We no longer want empty promises. We have been waiting on those since 1986 and still no show. Am curious about your opinion though, how do we solve this NEPA issue in Nigeria?

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