Nigeria needs five years to achieve stable power supply

The Chief Executive Officer of Sahara Group, Mr Tonye Cole, on Thursday said that it would take Nigerians about five years to experience uninterrupted electricity supply.
Cole made the conclusion in a statement issued by the company, which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Cole also said there were areas that needed to be improved upon, before stable national power supply would be actualised.
He said that electricity development information sharing among key players in the sector would remain a key factor to success, in the years ahead.
He also identified the increasing rate of pipeline vandalism as another impediment in the projected national stable power supply situation.
“Anybody that vandalises a pipeline may vandalise the pipeline to go and sell crude somewhere, thinking that he is making money, but each time he vandalises a pipeline, whether it is a gas pipeline or an oil pipeline, it affects everyone.
“But before we can get to a point where we don’t have to think about power because it is just there, it requires a lot of investment, a lot of capital has to go into that,” he said.
Cole said that the power sector had taken a new shape with the new investors, adding that the private companies need to collaborate with government and the regulators to achieve realistic results.
“It is a new area and it is expected that laws and a relationship between the regulators, investors and customers will be shaped along the way,” he said.
According to him, people need to understand the difference between generation and transmission and then the difference between transmission and distribution.
“Most people don’t know what these things are and as far as the customer is concerned, he wants just one thing, power, power, that is all.
“We will begin to see improvement within six months, but improvement in communication is the first thing that we need,” he added. (NAN)