Claims by the Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu that 150 million Nigerians now enjoy “adequate electricity” supply with 5,500 megawatts generated has described as a joke too far by the Nigeria Labour Congress.
NLC president Joe Ajaero said Wednesday in a statement that Mr. Adelabu’s claims were “outrageous” in a nation that continues to grapple with inadequate power supply.
“The Wild assertion is not only pretentious, but also a bad joke on a people daily confronted by grinding darkness, outrageous electricity tariffs, and a power sector manipulated for private profit at the expense of national progress”
“Perhaps, the Minister wants to perform Jesus’ miracle of feeding 5,000 persons with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.”
“To suggest that over 150 million Nigerians have access to reliable power in a country that struggles to generate a meagre and inconsistent 5,000 megawatts—far below the global benchmark of 1,000mw per one million people—is to insult the intelligence and lived realities of Nigerians.”
The NLC, which stated that Nigeria should be generating no less than 150,000mw to justify such a claim, noted that “even on its best day, the country’s electricity generation has never exceeded 5,500mw—and that figure remains unstable and unreliable.”
“We want to ask, is Nigeria’s standard different from the world standard? Where are the power plants that make this level of supply possible? Where is the upgraded transmission infrastructure to support such output? Why are our homes still shrouded in darkness and our factories shutting down daily?”
The NLC traced the current electricity crisis in Nigeria to what it also described as a direct result of the grand betrayal that was the 2013 power sector’s privatisation.
Ajaero accused the federal government of handing over the nation’s critical infrastructure to cronies for just N400 billion, adding that “Over a decade later, there has been no improvement in service delivery. Yet, these same GenCos and DISCOS, which have failed the nation woefully, are to receive over N4 trillion in public subsidies with zero accountability.