The Federal Government yesterday said it is working to eliminate grid collapse from the nation’s power sector in the long term.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, who disclosed this during a budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Power in Abuja, however said in the short term, efforts of the ministry are geared towards reducing the frequency of collapses and a 24 hours restoration of power in the event of any such occurrence.
He added that most of the current cases of National Grid collapse is due to the activities of vandals of electricity infrastructure across the country.
Adelabu said: “We are proud to say that we almost met all our targets for 2024 with the meagre budget that was approved for 2024 and our hope that 2025 will be a better year for us and we will be able to address all the existing issues in the sector, which are the gas infrastructure issue, which still exists in terms of the supply of gas, in terms of volumes and in terms pipelines that are also vandalised, that actually supply poor quality of gas to the power generation companies, in terms of the old dilapidated transmission infrastructures that we inherited.
He also disclosed that power generation improved by 30per cent in 2024, adding that the Ministry has set a target of acquiring 10million prepaid electricity metres in the next five years beginning from 2025 to bridge the shortfall of the essential equipment in the country.
He lamented that the Ministry was confronted with funding issues in 2024 while calling on the Senate to intervene through its power of appropriation.
He said: “We all know that the power sector is a very expensive and fund guzzling sector across the world. Outside food security, energy security has been an issue all over the world, not just in Nigeria. Go to Europe, go to Asia, go to the Middle East, South America, North America, it is food security, and energy security and we all know what are the causes of these.
Adelabu further disclosed that power generation in the country improved by 30 per cent in 2024 due to concerted efforts by the ministry and other critical stakeholders.
He said: ”Our focus during the 2024 budget year was more on energy access expansion. As we know, quite a huge number of Nigerians still lack access to electricity.
