Oscarline Onwuemenyi 14 April 2012, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – The Federal Government has explained that the power sector is presently at a cross road and requires painful ‘clagging’ to produce results at the earliest time possible.
The sector is likened to a patient in very critical condition which the hospital support staff must clag before the doctor takes final decision.
The new Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Dr. Dere Awosika gave this charge while addressing the top management staff of the ministry in a meeting at the Ministry’s Headquarters in Abuja.
Dr. Awosika noted that the road to achieving sustainable electricity is difficult but observed that the foundation being laid by the present administration would fasten the process to achieving the laudable objectives.
She told the management staff who are mostly engineers, that generation, transmission and distribution must consistently adhere to the necessary synergy required to achieve the national vision in the sector.
“You must clag and write what you see so that the patient does not die. Some drugs reduce pains faster than others so we must inject the fastest pain relieving drug into the system so that the patient (power sector) not only does not die but recover from its debilitating and perennial ailment” the Permanent Secretary stated.
She added that, “The light vision for Nigeria, ‘mission possible’ should be the watchword in the sector. Work as if your life depended on this power thing. Absorb any person who can help us. If there are Nigerians (outside the service) who can help the system, please accommodate them. We can’t afford to fail in this sector.
“We are not going to tolerate any person, no matter how highly placed, to constitute a cog in the wheel thereby retarding the progress. We must have this light and have it more abundantly soon” she stated.
According to her, “Our lives and those of our children depend on electricity, the economy, employment, health sector, education, aviation and achieving all the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, depends on this elusive power generation.
“You can now understand why Government would not condone any recalcitrant elements on the way. We must successfully brace the tape before looking back. Yes, the various strategies may be painful, but we need to scrub the wound (sector), scrub let the wound bleed, so that it would heal quickly” Awosika who is a reknowned Pharmacist postulated.
The Permanent secretary observed that the power sector reform is a creation of the National Assembly, pointing out that there are laid down rules and due processes to be followed in restoring sanity to the system.
He noted that, “Our Ministers are working their socks off to cast the demon out of the sector and therefore must not be coerced into abandoning the processes established by law so as to pacify critics, she added. No room for mistakes in the privatization process. That is why we take a step at a time,” she said.
“We are battling to revive and put into optimal use, power stations constructed almost 40 years without any single overhaul or even servicing ever since then. So when you replace one part now, another ailing part would cave in, but we will surely get it right with all hands being on the deck.
“When we have succeeded, then the need to have maintenance culture would have been imbibed in handling all government projects henceforth” she concluded.
