Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu

Power sector problems not technical – Minister

The Minister of Power, Adedayo Adelabu, says the challenges facing the Nigeria electricity supply industry are not technical.

Adelabu disclosed this in response to comments that he was a square peg in a round hole for heading the power ministry without the needed technical know-how.

Speaking during a radio programme in Ibadan, Oyo State, which our correspondent monitored, the power minister said the problems facing the sector are strategic and structural.

According to him, Nigeria needs a problem-solving specialist to get the problems solved and not necessarily an engineer.

“Our problem in the power sector is not technical, sincerely. It is purely strategic, structural; and it is a problem-solving specialist that we need,” he stated.

The minister declared that President Bola Tinubu did not appoint him to manufacture transformers or power cables but to look at the hurdles and proffer solutions.

“They’ve not appointed me as minister to start manufacturing transformers, meters, power cables, towers, or electric poles. No! What they have appointed me to do is to look at the industry and see where the hurdles are. Where are the bottlenecks? To resolve it and make the sector flow.

“Each of these operators has the technical specialists that handle them. I don’t work in generation companies, they have the engineers that generate. I don’t work in TCN, though they are under me, they have engineers all over. I don’t work in any of the DisCos; the people handling the DisCos are specialists.

“But they needed me to coordinate, harmonise, and synergise all the services so that the hurdles will be removed,” he explained.

He maintained that what he did was to go into a comprehensive diagnosis of the issue, saying one cannot solve a problem without understanding the root cause of the problem and you have to be sincere with it.

He stressed, “We diagnose, we consult, we engage all the industry stakeholders and we got to know what the problems are. We hold several retreats to document the practical solutions, not all these free-hanging abstract solutions. But what is workable and practical, and we said we should stop complaining, we now need to go to the field and implement these solutions.”

One of the solutions, he said, is the need for a law that decentralises the power sector and allows private sector participation as done by the Electricity Act 2023 signed by Tinubu.

He stated that previous administrations ran away from implementing a cost-reflective tariff to avoid abuses and condemnation even when subsidies were not properly funded and they kept piling up.

“We are owing the generation companies N1.3tn, the gas companies are owed about $1.3bn dollars debt that we met on ground and you are saying the industry will not be crippled.

“So we attacked the market, we attacked the liquidity, we attacked the pricing. And we are saying we should migrate as a journey from what we have now to a full cost-reflective tariff, which is about 15 per cent of the market. Appreciating the hardship the people are going through, we cannot see everybody pay so much. The government is still subsidising,” he remarked.

Adelabu disclosed that the ministry is currently upgrading old power infrastructure, stressing that power does not work through the air like telecommunications.

“Power is not like telecoms. It is a bigger market than telecoms because you must connect. You cannot generate power via the air or the abstract. There must be a power connection. So, it is a complex network, it is a complex architecture. You move power from as far as the Niger Delta and you want to drop it in Lagos. Do you know the number of kilometers of transmission, high voltage, 330 kV lines you are going to run? Do you know the number of towers, the right of way, and compensation for properties that will be destroyed while you are constructing this?

“Do you know the power transformers you need to install in the substations? These cost millions of dollars,” he noted.

Speaking about power asset security, he lamented that there are lots of saboteurs vandalising power assets.

The minister stated that the saboteurs cut off transmission lines, and demolished transmission towers, substations, and transformers.

“For about two or three weeks, the entire North East was in darkness, just because they went to bring down all the transmission power lines. What can we do? And we must use our taxpayers’ money to even replace all these,” he worried.

He blamed cabals and cartels for the attacks on power infrastructure.

“If you make the power sector work in this country, some people will believe that you are snatching their daily bread from them. We have faced these limitations, we have faced these challenges and sabotage in the last year. People do not want the power sector because it’s a source of livelihood for all of them.

“The majority of the power generator companies all over the world manufacture for Nigeria; 80 to 70 per cent of their sales is from the Nigerian market because of our sheer population and the non-effectiveness of our power sector.

“Let me tell you, I did not want to say this on air but I think I will mention it. I received threat calls several times. I am the 49th power minister in this country in 60 years of Nigerian existence. The past administration also had good intentions but probably they were bullied. They were intimidated,” Adelabu narrated, saying he would not be intimidated.

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