15 April 2014, Lagos – An expert, Prof. Phillip Dayo, says Nigeria should be able to generate about 160,000 megawatts of electricity to have steady power supply.
The expert, a professor of Engineering at the Federal University, Utuoke, Bayelsa, made the observation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said the country’s current generating capacity of between 3,500 to 4,000 megawatts was grossly inadequate to stimulate development and support the huge population.
The expert said for the country to attain its full development potential, it must take aggressive and result-oriented steps to significantly improve electricity generation.
“Presently, there is inadequate electricity generation in Nigeria. With less than 4,000 megawatts power in a country of about 160 million people, we are grossly under-electrified.
“If we really want to use the ideal requirement standard, then, we should be talking of 1,000 megawatts per one million Nigerians.
“This means we need 160,000 megawatts generating capacity. It means we are currently under-electrified and we need to improve the actual supply and remove barriers to improved generation,” he said.
Dayo said attaining exponential increase in power generation in the country might seem daunting, but it was possible with the right interventions.
According to him, one of the interventions will be for government to put in place measures to attract investments in building of more power plants.
He suggested the improvement and expansion of gas distribution infrastructure to effectively serve power plants for enhanced electricity supply.
Dayo also urged government and other investors to upgrade the capacity of the transmission and distribution infrastructure.
“We need to invest not only in the expansion and transmission sector. We should also modernise the infrastructure in the two sectors.”
The expert urged the Federal Government not give in to calls to sell the electricity transmission company, saying that such step wìll be counter-productive.
– NAN
