Electricity: FG approves N5bn to expand gas supply in southwest

The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved N5 billion for the expansion of gas supply in the Southwest.

Abubakar Aliyu, Nigeria’s minister of power announced this while speaking with journalists at the Presidential Villa, after the virtual FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. He lamented the current gas shortage which has compounded the already worsening electricity supply in the country.

According to Aliyu, “The more reason we are facing the situation now is the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go for maintenance.

Aliyu, who stated that the current situation followed from a regularly scheduled maintenance where there would have been scheduled outage, added, however, that “the national grid had been recovered”

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“We had not envisaged that we would have issues around vandalisation of pipelines which the NNPC has addressed as you can see evidence everywhere, aviation fuel, and petrol in the filling stations. It is a combination of many factors. That compounded the problem we are having on the grid.

“We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid. We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid; basically, the problem is around gas.

“You need to have a gas contract between generating companies and gas supplies – some are from contracts, some are not. We are looking into this and have proffered some solutions in a few days to mature.

“We have gotten approval now of N5billion from FEC to open up and expand Lagos/Ogun where presently, they may not be enjoying quality electricity. We need to do this more.”