Should the Federal Government attain its goal of producing 6,000 mega watts of electricity by the end of this year, it means contrary to previous assumptions that that amount of power will only satisfy a percentage of the country's requirements, Nigerians will enjoy 24 hours service.
According to a new statistic released yesterday by Minister of Power, Dr. Rilwan Lanre Babalola, the nation's total demand is currently 5,100 mega watts, instead of about 15,000mw long held as the current requirement. He however, put the current available capacity at just over 4,000mw."
Minister of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, had earlier this year, announced 5,000mw as the available capacity.
Babalola, who spoke at the roll-out workshop of the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN), in Abuja, said: currently, we have available capacity of just over 4000mw, 60 per cent of our total installed capacity. Based on every single concluded study, our current demand is in the range of 5,100mw, although some contest it. I am yet to see the quantitative analysis to show that our demand is 15,000mw.
He said the inability to maximise the nation's assets was due to the way they were managed among other reaseons.
He said, "in our aspiration to be one of the top 20 economies by 2020, the nation will require a minimum 25,000mw. This will require effective management of our assets and judicious use of our resources.
To accomplish this, the role of skilled personnel could not be overemphasised, adding: the manpower constraint is a major bottleneck to achieving realisable power supply in terms of technical and commercial aspects of operations.
An important element of the endeavour is to collectively work to change our mindset. A well trained and productive workforce is the only way to address the power sector challenges in our country," he said, and urged NAPTIN to go beyond training engineers, and work towards training managers as well.
