Posted on: 12:29 Sat, 12 Mar 2016

The federal government has apologised to
Nigerians for the persistent power failures,
blaming the situation on gas failure as well as sabotage and vandalisation of power infrastructure.



In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday by Segun Adeyemi, special adviser to Lai
Mohammed, minister of information and
culture, the President Buhari-led federal
government has apologised to Nigerians for the persistent power failures, blaming the situation on gas failure as well as sabotage and vandalisation of power infrastructure.

The federal government said that all efforts were being made to rectify the situation and ensure a gradual improvement in the power situation.

“There will be a decent improvement in the
power situation from this weekend, thanks to
ongoing remedial efforts that will double the
current power supply to 4,000WM. Getting back
to the 5,074MW all-time high that was reached
earlier will take a few more weeks,” Mohammed
said.

The minister said that at a time the routine
maintenance by the Nigeria Gas Company had
affected the supply of gas to power stations,
forcing down power supply from an all-time
high of 5,074 MW to about 4,000MW, a
combination of unsavoury incidents further
crashed the power supply to about half that
figure.

“The vandalisation of the Forcados export
pipelines forced oil companies to shut down,
making it impossible for them to produce gas.
Then, workers at the Ikeja DISCOS, who were
protesting the disengagement of some of their
colleagues after they failed the company’s
competency test, apparently colluded with the
National Transmission Station in Osogbo to shut
down transmission.

“Finally, the unfortunate strike by the unions at
the NNPC, over the restructuring of the
corporation, shut down the Itarogun power
station, the biggest in the country. Due to these
factors, only 13 out of the 24 power stations in
the country are currently functioning. It is this
same kind of unsavoury situation that has
affected fuel supply and subjected Nigerians to
untold hardship.”

The minister condemned the situation in
which some Nigerians, under the guise of the various unions in the oil and gas sector or sheer vandalisation, would continuously
sabotage the country’s power infrastructure.

“The bitter truth is that for as long as these
groups of Nigerians continue to sabotage the power infrastructure, Nigerians cannot enjoy a decent level of power supply. We therefore admonish all Nigerians who may be agitating for their rights in whatever form to refrain from any action that will further hurt the same people they claim to be protecting,” he added.