President Muhammadu Buhari's government has made several promises to improve power supply but has failed.
Abubakar Aliyu, the Nigerian minister of power, has attributed the nation's inability to produce up to 5,000 megawatts of electricity to a lack of gas supplies.
He said this after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, roughly a month after the ministry pledged that the nation's electricity generation would reach 5,000mw
President Muhammadu Buhari's government has made several promises to improve power supply but has failed.
He was quoted by Channels TV as saying: “Regarding the drop of electricity, yes, you know, the supply has so many players, gas, the cost that drops, issues of gas to some power plants, they cannot switch on their plant.
"If they do, you will experience some drop once they switch on, and the electricity will increase. There may be a drop due to the fault of the generator and the electricity may drop.
"It’s mostly generation. I’ve been watching since like yesterday (Tuesday) evening, we had a generation of around 4,600 megawatts. And you know, we told you since 1st July, that we’ll be able to raise it to 5,000 when we activate the contract. And we have not able to do so, due to some issues around gas contracts, gas to power, which we are trying to take care of.
"And we have gone very far with that, and I believe it is for that reason that we are able to reach up to 4,600 as of yesterday. This morning, it dropped to 4,100.
So, this is what is happening, you will be experiencing this fluctuations due to all these issues around gas to power because gas is not something that we control directly; you have to pay them; they will not give you gas until you pay. So, we are looking at ways to solve that issue.
“It is the reason we are unable to reach that 5,000 we promised you by July 1 of this year. But as you will see from that date, July 1st, we have been around 4,000 megawatts since then.
“Even if you experience a drop, it may not be like throughout the day, you will see by evening it will rise again, just like I saw 4600 megawatts yesterday evening. So, this is the situation. So, we’re working around the clock to ensure that we raise the capacity to the required level.”