Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, has noted that complaints about rising petrol prices have significantly decreased due to an improvement in electricity supply.
Speaking on Tuesday at the 2024 Nigeria Energy Exhibition and Conference in Lagos, Adelabu highlighted how better electricity supply has reduced the public’s need to rely on petrol for generators.
“People don’t need to buy petrol again as much as they used to do for them to have power. That’s why the noise is even at this level.
“If they had to be going to the filling stations to buy N1,000 per litre of petrol to generate electricity, we would have even had louder noise from the public,”
he said.
Adelabu also discussed Lagos state’s policy to replace 1 million generators in one year.
“We must replace all the generators,” he added.
Reflecting on Nigeria’s power generation, the minister lamented the slow growth.
“It took us almost 40 years to generate additional 2000MW from the 2000MW milestone we achieved in 1984,” he stated. “Now, we have taken it to an average of 5000MW, with a peak of 5,527MW on the third of September.”
Looking ahead, Adelabu projected that by the end of 2024, the Nigerian Electric Supply Industry (NESI) could increase its revenue to N2 trillion from the N1 trillion generated in 2023.
“We will achieve nothing less than N2 trillion for the industry in 2024,” he said.
The minister also spoke on resolving legacy debts.
“About N1.3 trillion was being owed to power generating companies (GenCos) and $1.3 billion to gas suppliers,” he explained.
Adelabu revealed the government’s focus on financial sustainability, noting the mobilization of over $1 billion to attract additional investments.
Initiatives like the $750 million World Bank scheme, scheduled to commence next month, aim to deliver electricity to over 2.5 million people.
“We cannot achieve energy expansion with government spending alone… the capital must come through the private sector,” he concluded.
