Senator Gabriel Suswam, Former Benue State Governor, has stated that Nigeria’s power sector needs emergency intervention; otherwise, the national grid will start collapsing daily.
Suswam, an aspirant for the chairmanship position of the Peoples Democratic Party, made the comment in an interview with Arise TV.
His words: “It’s unfortunate that we have not been proactive. The only president who actually took some proactive steps was President Obasanjo.
“When he (Obasanjo) came in, the generation at that time was about 2, 3 thousand, highest 4,000 (megawatts), he decided that he was going to build ten thermal plants.
“Those are plants using gas as a source of energy so as to enhance the capacity of this country and it was enhanced up to 13,000 megawatts.
Now, he went ahead and initiated the idea of making sure that these thermal plants had the buy-in of all governors and local governments. We contributed and then, the majority of these power thermal plants were completed.
“The unfortunate thing is, that the transmission lines, what people call the national grid, have been in place for over 40 years, due to lack of maintenance, dilapidating and ageing infrastructure. That is what is causing the collapse of the national grid now.
“So, until there is an urgent emergency intervention in the power sector, otherwise, this grid will be collapasing everyday.”
The article was originally published on Politics Nigeria.
