Nigeria to Generate 15,000 Megawatts of Electricity

Power generation in Nigeria will increase to 15,000MW by 2015, amounting to an increase of about 275 percent if compared to the current 4,000MW. This assertion was made by Prof. Bart Nnaji, Minister of Power, at an energy conference in Lagos.

He told Nigerians that the federal government has also approved the building of a Super Grid transmission infrastructure, which, according to him, would make Nigeria one of the few countries in the world to have such state-of-the-art facility.

But to generate over 40,000MW by 2020 as obtainable in South Africa, Prof. Nnaji said Nigeria would need to invest an average of $10bn in the power sector annually for the next 10 years. He quickly added that government do not have such money and that the private sector should invest.

If you ask me, from all indications, it seems the minister is trying to play a smart one on Nigerians so that he can shift blames to the private sector for not investing enough if, by the end of this administration, Nigeria’s epileptic power situation is not addressed... I just hope that’s not his game plan.