TheCable

Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna, says President Bola Tinubu’s vision is to achieve constant power supply in the country in the next seven years.

El-Rufai spoke on Tuesday when he was screened by the senate as a ministerial nominee.

Abdulaziz Yari, senator representing Zamfara west, asked el-Rufai how he intends to confront the crisis in the energy sector if he is named minister of power.

The former Kaduna governor said Tinubu is determined to address the nation’s electricity problems head-on by putting permanent solutions in place.

He noted that the power supply challenge in Nigeria has defied every government for 60 years.

“It has defied every president,” he said.

“Tinubu is committed to ensuring that Nigeria has a stable and reliable electricity supply.

“The president’s vision is that within seven years we will not have power outages in this country.”

El-Rufai said without constant electricity, serious industrialisation cannot take place in the country.

He said because he has a dream of achieving constant power supply in Africa’s largest economy, Tinubu has requested that he works with him to address the challenge.

“And I will do my best,” he said.

El-Rufai said to improve power generation, the country must look into what is constraining the full production of electricity.

He identified insufficient gas supply as a major problem bedevilling power generation.

“Generation stations cannot produce because of poor supply of gas. Eighty percent of our generation is from gas and the rest is hydro. The gas-fired station often doesn’t have a supply of gas,” he said.

“There are power stations that have been completed three years ago but have produced nothing because there is no gas supply. You must ensure that gas and power are together under one roof.”

The former governor also said the entire nation’s power transmission infrastructure must be put in good shape.

“We need to close the loop in our transmission system,” he added.

The country has faced a power crisis in years with the national grid known for experiencing disruptions. The grid collapsed in February, May, July, and August 2021, and 2022. 

TheCable reported that the grid experienced 206 collapses between 2010 and 2019.