Adebayo Adelabu, Nigeria’s minister of power has announced the nation’s long-standing issues with power generation and distribution will be resolved within the next three to six months.
Adelabu who was speaking in Lagos after a visit to Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company and inspection of some facilities, stressed that with various upgrading and installations of new equipment across the country, Nigerians should be rest assured of improvements in electricity supplies in a few months.
“The impact of these transformers is that we are going to start witnessing an improved supply of electricity to our consumers because there is a lot of pressure on the existing transformers in terms of inadequacies of the numbers and the age of the transformers, by introducing these new ones it will reduce that pressure and we will be able to spread the load across the new or higher capacity transformer,” Adelabu told journalists.
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He added, “Next three to six months things will change significantly within the sector”.
Adelabu, who was received by a team led by Folake Soetan, the managing director and chief executive officer of Ikeja Electric expressed delight over the scorecard of the utility firm.
“This meeting is planned, not accidental, even though it is brought forward from a later date.”
The minister pinpointed poor investment from the DisCos as the reason why most of them struggle to reduce their losses significantly.
“Ikeja DisCo achieved something very impressive compared to other DisCos, yet we are not satisfied; there may be a need for us to propose a capitalisation requirement for all DisCos, thereby they would be compelled to bring in funds to invest in their distribution infrastructure,” the minister said.
Adelabu bemoaned the rising cases of vandalism of power assets across the country, demanding capital punishment for vandals.
“We need scapegoats. We are ready to give them the right punishment in terms of prosecution.
“Punishment for vandals should go beyond six months jail term. Capital punishment should be meted out to power vandals. They kill people, and they kill businesses,” he declared.
