Claims by the Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, that 150 million Nigerians currently have access to electricity may have landed him in trouble as the House of Representatives has announced plans to commence an oversight of the Nigerian power sector to verify his claims.
This is even as the Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Power, Mr Joshua Gana in an interview in Abuja disclosed that the figure of one hundred and fifty million Nigerians bandied about by the might be on the high side, but being a statistic, it needs to be verified.
“I think one hundred fifty million might be on the high side, but of course, you know it’s statistics with their projections, so maybe in their projections, they know how many installations have been finished and are on stream so that they feel up to one hundred fifty million Nigerians have access to it.
“But some might not have been connected to those local mini-grid systems as we speak. So, I will say we, as a parliament, can engage with some of the consultants in the sector to say, let’s go round and have more fact-finding on the statement of the minister, and that’s our role during our oversight visits.
“So, I can come back to Nigerians probably later, when we start our oversight, to report back to them that having gone round the different states as the budget provisions allow the parliament to, we can reconfirm that the number the minister said is factual or is estimated and are just projections from the calculations of total installations of mini grids across the country.” Mr Gana said.
Mr Gana also pleaded with Nigerians to be patient with the government, particularly on the cost of electricity.
He said that the high cost of electricity in Nigeria is due to the removal of power subsidies by the government under the cost-reflective tariff.
Mr Gana stressed that there have been significant investments in addressing power challenges in Nigeria by both past and present administrations.
“We plead with Nigerians to be patient,” he added.
