Nigerians have been apologised to for the hardship being experience because of drop in the supply of electricity to their homes and offices.
The Federal Government blamed this on gas failure as well as sabotage and the works of vandals of power infrastructure.
The FG said efforts are being made to rectify the issues and make Nigerians smile again.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, promised that there would be a gradual improvement in the power situation in the country from this weekend.
He noted that there are ongoing remedial efforts to double the current power supply to 4,000MW, saying that “getting back to the 5,074 MW all-time high that was reached earlier will take a few more weeks” to attain again.
He attributed the present poor situation of power in the country to the vandalization of the Forcados export pipelines, which he said forced oil companies to shut down, making it impossible for them to produce gas.
In addition, he said the protest of workers at the Ikeja Discos against 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.”
The Minister also pointed out that the routine maintenance by the Nigeria Gas Company affected the supply of gas to power stations, forcing down power supply from an all-time high of 5,074MW to about 4,000MW, a combination of unsavoury incidents further crashed the power supply to about half that figure.”
“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.
“Due to these factors, only 13 out of the 24 power stations in the country are currently functioning. It is this same kind of unsavoury situation that has affected fuel supply and subjected
Nigerians to untold hardship,” he explained.
He said “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.”
Mohammed cautioned “all Nigerians who may be agitating for their rights in whatever form to refrain from any action that will further hurt the same people they claim to be protecting.”
