Electricity tariff hike: Adebayo calls for sector de-politicisation, increased investment

By Sunday Ani

Leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has faulted the planned hike in electricity tariffs, noting that the Federal Government is playing politics with the sector. He called for de-politicisation and increased investment in the sector.

He stated that the government is focusing on creating an electricity market by following examples from countries like Chile, where electricity is not seen purely from a strategic national development perspective, as reflected in Nigeria’s first national development plan.

He noted that the government is not approaching electricity as a social service but as a market-driven product. However, he lamented that the problem with this approach is that the government is trying to create a perfect market that does not exist.

“So, it will be good for the government to forget the idea of creating a perfect market. They should try as much as possible to make supply available, and it is an engineering question.

“There is no amount of change of language that can run away from the fact that people will know when there is electricity. Remember how we used to talk about generating 5,000 megawatts? Now they have changed it. So, it is just a mathematical language. At the end of the day, people will know whether electricity is available, stable, and affordable, and it requires a lot of investment, some of which have a long lead time.

“The problem with politics is that the president has only four years, and if you have an engineering project that requires 16 years of continuous investment, there is no need to lie to the people that you are going to fix it in four years.

“You will see that many people have fallen by the wayside. Bola Ige came and said that in six months, there would be electricity. If you listened to Babatunde Fashola, by now we should be swimming in electrical current. I believe that in his house now, he is probably running on a generator.

“So, what we need to understand is the advice I gave in 2001. I remember in September 2001, I attended the National Council on Power and advised them to de-politicise power and make it an investment, just like healthcare delivery and other essential services, because these things require time and major investment.

“I think the government should do more in terms of investing public money in core areas. We have relied too much on the national grid, but the engineering requirements of the grid are too technical for the people in the ministry to manage. So, we should do it the other way around. The grid is cheaper if it works, but I think micro-grids and captive systems are more manageable and reliable,” he stated.

He also called on the government to address the excessive bureaucracy in the sector. “I made a huge investment in electricity in my community in Ondo State through solar. For the second phase, I tried to engage the government and invested heavily in electrification using their grid.

“One and a half years later, they are still doing inspections. I have done all the engineering and bought all the equipment. And when you buy all this equipment, everything is donated to the government automatically. So, they need to reduce bureaucracy and work on affordability,” he stressed.

Insisting on increased and strategic investment in the sector, he urged the National Council of State and the National Economic Council to collaborate with the government to address the issue.

He said: “All of them should come together and make the right investment in the right mix of energy sources. We should be very careful when it comes to wheeling power over thousands of kilometres. We don’t have the executive and managerial capacity for someone in Ibadan to be relying on power from Kainji, or someone in Yola expecting power to come all the way from Afam.

“So, you need to localise it. Some of the questionable deals surrounding new hydropower projects, which are now subjects of international legal disputes, could have been avoided if investments had been directed to existing power stations. By now, capacity would have increased, and we wouldn’t be facing litigations.”