BY AKUDORO GLORIA
Following the huge criticism by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has cleared the air on how the ministry planned to apply N8bn budget electricity bill sensitization.
The Minister had recently during his budget defense at the National Assembly, revealed the proposed budget of N8 billion for 2025 to sensitize Nigerians on the need for timely payment of electricity bill.
He said the campaign which would be conducted through multiple media platforms, including social, digital, and print, to reach Nigeria’s diverse population of over 200 million effectively, aims to address the challenges of power theft, poor payment habits, and the protection of national power assets.
However, the Minister’s demand has proven difficulty for many to digest especially as the NLC through its President, Comrade Joe Ajaero described as ‘absurd’ the N8 billion allocation, and urged the management of the Power Ministry and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to reinvigorate the sector and save it from total collapse.
Ajaero in a statement on Tuesday titled ‘Before The Collapse Of The Power Sector: N8 Billion Budget For Electricity Bill Sensitization And Matters Arising’, underscored gross corruption in the power sector, and the inability of the leaders to find lasting solutions to power challenges despite huge investments in the sector.
“The Power sector in Nigeria is at the brink of collapse as the helmsmen have repeatedly shown gross incompetence. It is a sector where the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) despite the enormous power invested in it by the Electricity act of 2023 has continuously demonstrated incapacity to regulate or outrightly refused to discharge its responsibilities to electricity consumers in Nigeria while the Minister in charge is enamoured with seeking about N8billion (Eight Billion Naira) to teach Nigerians how to pay electricity bill.
“It is therefore not surprising that power grid collapse is now a constant as it has continued to succumb to greed and crass incompetence.
“Whereas the Minister seeks N8 billion (Eight Billion Naira) to educate us, contractors in the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) who help in delivering capacity are owed over N200 billion (Two Hundred Billion Naira).
This is even as the union demanded for the resignation of the Minister of Power citing repeated collapse of the national grid under the leadership of Chief Adelabu.
“If the Ministry of Power is manned by competent officials, the now embarrassing constant grid collapse would have been averted instead of the worrying statement by the Minister that this will continue as if this has always been the norm.
“We believe that this is a clear admission of incapacity and failure by the Ministry and we wonder why they would not do the honourable thing by resigning”, said the NLC President.
Responding to criticism on Thursday, the Minister in statement issued by his Special Adviser on Strategic Communications and Media Relations, Mr. Bolaji Tunji, justified the N8 billion in the 2025 budgetary appropriation of the ministry, stating that the figure is specifically for advocacy, education, enlightenment and provision of technology to protect power infrastructure and other national asset.
“Far from what is being canvassed, the Federal government is deeply worried about acts of sabotage that have continued to erode the gains made in the last one and half year in electricity supply to Nigerians.
“It is important to correct the impression that N8b is being proposed for sensitization on electricity payment.
“We are all aware that in the last few months, acts of vandalism have continued to throw different parts of the country into darkness with vandals planting bombs under power towers, carting away power lines and cables, the recent one being the vandalism of under ground cables that has thrown many parts of Abuja into darkness, it is therefore important to protect the power infrastructure.
“Our advocacy would entail sensitization across the 774 LGAs and 36 States and Abuja. It would entail the use of electronic platforms such as radio and television; the social media, newspapers, billboards to re-orientate Nigerians on the implications of vandalizing power infrastructure and the need to sensitise Nigerians to own these infrastructure. It would also require the engagements of the different community stakeholders across the geo-political zones in town hall meetings; engaging local security men to protect such assets. This would also involve the deployment of technology to safeguard these assets.
“Also, the Ministry will embark on some Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects across many of the host communities to our power installations to motivate and encourage them for protection by local hunters and security personnel. All these will cost so much.
“More specifically, the advocacy will take us to all the nooks and crannies of the country, we will hold meetings with the leaders, stakeholders and youths. We will run television and radio jingles, we will go on the social media, so that we can really reach those we need to address over this issue.
“We will reach them in their local languages and dialect. So, you can imagine how much this will cost, but we believe that this will help us to address this issue and arrest it. This is essentially what this budgetary allocation is meant for”, the Minister said.
The Minister who further claimed that the ministry do not intend to educate Nigerians on the need to pay for electricity consumed by them as the distribution companies (DisCos) are capable of doing so, also disclosed a total sum of over N9 billion expended on TCN vandalized Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna line.
“We have the DISCOs who provide the generated power to the customers, so we have no reason whatsoever to embark on an advocacy for customers to pay for what they consume”.
“Let me also use this opportunity to tell Nigerians that it costs the TCN over N9billion to bring back the transmission towers and lines destroyed by the terrorists on the Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna line which threw substantial parts of northern Nigeria into darkness last year, up till now, we are yet to complete work on the lines due to activities of bandits who have continued to stagnate efforts to repair some of the lines.
On the issue of incessant grid collapse, Adelabu explained, “efforts are continuing to tackle the problems. It is a known fact that over the years, the infrastructure has been neglected and allowed to decay to a state of dilapidation. These are being gradually tackled. The Siemens project is one of the ways of tackling this.
“The pilot stage of the Siemens project was to ensure the installation of 10 power transformers and the mobile substations across the country and so far, is about 95 percent completion. So far, we have installed eight power transformers and 5 mobile substations in the following States; Okene, Kogi; Amukpe, Delta; Ihovbor, Edo; Apo, Abuja; Maryland, Lagos; Potiskum, Yobe; Ajah, Lagos; Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi; Jebba, Niger; Kwanar-dangora, Kano; UI, Oyo; Sapade, Ogun.
“The 2nd phase will see the construction of 14 brown field substations and 20 green field substations. Agreement has been signed for the construction of five substations starting Q1, already. This will further strengthen the grid capacity and reduce instances of grid collapse. Not only that, the SCADA project is still ongoing.”