More investments needed in power sector – Adebayo

Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo has said that more investments is need in the electricity sector if the country os to overcome its perennial country challenges. 

Nigeria continues to grapple with electricity distribution due to obsolete equipment, which analysts attribute to a lack of investments in the sector. 

Adebayo, who is also the leader of the party urged the government to not just invest but to invest right saying the National Council of State and National Economic Council should partner with the federal government to address the investment issue. 

He said, “All of them should come together and make the right investment in the right mix of energy sources and we should dwell very delicately when it comes to wheeling power over thousands of kilometers. We don’t have that executive and managerial capacity for someone who is in Ibadan to be relying on power coming from Kanji, or someone who is in Yola expecting power to come all the way from, maybe, Afam.

“So, you need to localize it. If the investments had been made in some of these power stations, by now capacity would have gone up.”

The former presidential hopeful insisted that excessive bureaucracy also poses a challenge to the sector’s growth. 

He said, “I think the government should do more in terms of investing public money in core areas and the way we have relied too much on the national grid; the engineering requirements of the national grid are too technical for the people in the ministry to manage. So, we should do it the other way round. The grid is cheaper if it works but I think that micro grates and captain systems are more manageable and more reliable.

“I made a huge investment in electricity in my community in Ondo State and I did it through solar. The second phase I tried to engage the government and I made a heavy investment 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 die down on bureaucracy, and work on the affordability,” he stressed.