Oscarline Onwuemenyi
12 August 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Federal government has announced that it is working out a modality that will help bring down power consumptions by individual power consumers and other business outfits.
Specifically, the government is partnering Omatek Ventures to further expand the country’s off-grid project in a bid to address the lingering energy crises.
The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, who gave the indication in Abuja, said that the federal government is taking steps to reduce power consumption by households, businesses and government by 85 percent.
Onu explained that the idea behind cutting power consumption had to do with the need to diversify the Nigerian economy “which relies on oil as the major source of foreign exchange earnings.”
According to him, “The current administration is bent on leveraging on information and communications technology and science and technology as an enabler of economic development and to diversify the economy.”
Onu added that the government was already working with the country’s indigenous technology company, Omatek Ventures Plc, to achieve its target.
He said that in choosing Omatek as a partner in the project, the government took into consideration the need to empower indigenous technological companies and encourage the growth of science and technology in the country.
“No nation has ever succeeded by not looking inward. Every great nation has looked inward to patronise its locally developed technological innovations and other products and as such, Nigeria is looking towards that direction as well towards encouraging patronage of locally developed products. The earlier we do this, the better for us,” he said.
He added, “No nation has ever been truly great in the world without science and technology. Nigeria should aspire to be a truly great nation in technology in the world. What is lacking is that over the years, Nigeria has not paid adequate attention to technology.”
The minister, however, identified lack of funding and effective coordination as the bane of technological development in Nigeria, saying that the current administration was keen on ensuring that it deepened research and development that would unlock the nation’s economic prosperity through effective partnership with indigenous players in the S&T industry.
Meanwhile, the group managing director of Omatek Ventures Plc, Mrs. Florence Seriki, said that while power generation and distribution had been a major issue in the country, leveraging solar power solutions would play a significant role in dealing with the issue of the power vacuum in the country.
Seriki said that the company had further expanded its investment in latest and modern solar factory in order to provide the assistance needed towards ensuring that the federal government delivered enduring power supply to Nigerians.
Explaining the readiness of Omatek to play a key role in power provision for the country, she said that the 50KVA three-phase off-grid solar solution inaugurated earlier in its factory would provide a 24/7 power supply.
