The Federal Government on Friday apologised to Nigerians for the hardship they are experiencing due to the prevailing power failure across the country.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a statement in Abuja by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr Segun Adeyemi.
Mohammed, who cited gas failure, sabotage and vandalism of power infrastructure as causes of the outage being experienced, said all efforts were being made to rectify the situation and ensure a gradual improvement of the situation.
”There will be a decent improvement in the power situation from this weekend, thanks to ongoing remedial efforts that will double the current power supply to 4,000MW.
“Getting back to the 5,074MW all-time high that was reached earlier will take a few more weeks.
“At a time the routine maintenance by the Nigeria Gas Company has affected the supply of gas to power stations, forcing down power supply from an all-time high of 5,074 MW to about 4,000MW.’’
According to him, it is a combination of unsavoury incidents that has further crashed the power supply to about half that figure.
”The vandalism of the Forcados export pipelines forced oil companies to shut down, making it impossible for them to produce gas.
“Then, workers at the Ikeja Discos, who were protesting the disengagement of some of their colleagues after they failed the company’s competency test, apparently colluded with the National Transmission Station in Osogbo to shut down transmission.
”Finally, the unfortunate strike by the unions at the NNPC, over the restructuring of the Corporation, shut down the Itarogun Power Station, the biggest in the country.’’
The minister said due to these factors, only 13 out of the 24 power stations in the country were currently functioning.
According to him, it was this same kind of unsavoury situation that has affected fuel supply and subjected Nigerians to untold hardship.
Mohammed condemned the situation in which some Nigerians, under the guise of the various unions in the oil and gas sector or sheer vandalism, would continuously sabotage the country’s power infrastructure.
“The bitter truth is that for as long as these groups of Nigerians continue to sabotage the power infrastructure, Nigerians cannot enjoy a decent level of power supply.’’
The minister urged Nigerians, who may be agitating for their rights in whatever form, to refrain from any action that would further hurt the same people they claim to be protecting.
