BY AKUDORO GLORIA
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has revealed Federal Government’s collaboration with the World Bank and African Development Bank (AFDB) to provide electricity to 50 million Nigerians through the Mission 300 project to Africa by 2030.
To facilitate the process, the Minister disclosed that the compact document, will be signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Tanzania in January, 2025.
The Power Minister, who was represented by his Chief Technical Adviser, Mr. Adedayo Olowoniyi, made the disclosure was made at the Quarterly Power Sector Working Group meeting held in Abuja.
“The Mission 300 is been driven by the World Bank and the African Development Bank and it is a project that will provide electricity to 300 millions Africans and Nigeria will benefit 50 millions from this. Nigeria has a large population that is without electricity and this is a great opportunity for us to be part of this process.
“The Compact document will be signed by our President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Tanzania in January, 2025. We worked extensively with World Bank, the AfDB and the Ministry of Finance to develop the document with all the countries that will be participating in it.
“The most important thing is that we have to drive the process by ourselves through the private and public sector participation. We will do it through the solar form system, mini and micro grid, grid extension and connection.
“The reality is that it is not actually feasible, based on the resources we have, to extend the grid to all Nigerians, one, from the funding point of view and secondly, it may not be commercially viable to begin to talk of grid extension to those parts that are not viable, but that does not mean that we should not deliver electricity to them, which is their right and as part of the dividends of democracy. But we will start with the home solar system in those areas where the grid may not work,” the Minister said.
Earlier, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Transition Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engr. Suleiman Ahmed Abdulaziz, stated that federal government has invested approximately N8.8 billion to repair and operationalize transmission towers that have been vandalised nationwide.
Recalled that on October 2024, the Transmission Company of Nigeria in its monthly bulletin and news report disclosed that Federal Government incurred a total expenditure of N29.3 billion on the repair of 266 electricity towers that were damaged by vandalism across the country between January 2022 and October 2024.
The report said vandalism of transmission towers occurred in the Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Bauchi, Port Harcourt, and Benin regions and that TCN had contracts out the repairs of some of the vandalised towers.
According to the breakdown of the report, 90 towers were destroyed in 2022. In 2023, this number rose by 23.3% to 111 towers. Between January and October 27, 2024, there were 65 instances of vandalism against electricity towers.
Meanwhile, in a statement signed by Bolaji Tunji, Special Adviser to the Minister of Power on Strategic Communication and Media Relations, Abdulaziz, who was represented by the Executive Director, Transmission Service Provider (TSO) of TCN, Engr. Olugbenga Emmanuel Ajiboye said that between January 13, 2024 to date, 128 transmission towers have been destroyed either by vandals or bandits, across the country.
Abdulaziz expressed regret that after the vandals were arrested and handed over to the police for prosecution, they were bailed and they would return to continue with the vandalism.
“As I talk to you today, 128 of our towers have been destroyed by either vandals or bandits. Till date, we have spent about N8.8 billion, by our estimation, to put them back to full and functional use. It is so sad that each time the vandals were caught and taken to police for prosecution, police would incident them for theft, instead of vandalism and they will be bailed. If they are charged for vandalism, they cannot be bailed, but this is where we are.
So many of them have been arrested, but each time they will be bailed because police often incident their cases as that of theft.
“When the Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna towers were destroyed, we had to get the full military escorts for our contractors to get the transmission lines and towers restored and in the some cases, they would tell us that we could only work for two hour in some days. In some instances, they would even tell us that it was not safe to move there. How do we get out of this? How can we deliver electricity to Nigerians under these terrible circumstances? These are part of the challenges we are facing in the power sector”, Abdulaziz stated.
