Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
A businessman and expert in the oil and gas business, Prince Olusegun Aderemi, has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari’s quest to give Nigerians a stable power supply would be a mirage if the country depends solely on hydro power as the only generating source.
Aderemi said time has come for Nigeria to diversify by investing heavily in solar and wind energy sources to generate more megawatts for Nigerians to drive the economy and create employment in terms of small and medium scale enterprises development.
He spoke in Aramoko Ekiti, headquarters of Ekiti West Local
Government Area yesterday during a N50 million fund raising for community development in Glory Quarters and empowerment of 200 widows in the town.
The business mogul said: “No country can develop under a circumstance whereby over 150 million people are relying on power generation that stands at 3,000 megawatts.
“President Buhari must invest in solar and wind energy like we have in Asia countries. We have enough sunlight and power, and that is what we need. So, time has come for our country to bring in expatriates to really boost our knowledge in these areas.”
He also appealed to the federal government to check the menace of vandalism of oil installations in the Niger Delta region to revert this colossal economic loss being suffered by Nigerians.
Lamenting the two years power outage in that section of the town, Aderemi said he would partner Special Adviser to the
President on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, to donate a transformer to the community in order to shore up power generation.
Aderemi said: “As an entrepreneur and a community leader, I understand that the government can’t do it alone, so we have to also contribute our own quota and that is why we are empowering these widows. It is our responsibility to make them happy because they are being neglected by families and government, and in most cases, leaving them to bear the burden solely.
“Today, we are giving them food and clothing materials, and the next stage which we are doing the feasibility studies on will be the financial empowerment for them to have their own businesses, so that the level of poverty in the state can be reduced.”
The Chairman of the council, Mr. Kolawole Omotunde, and an oil and gas expert, Mrs. Sade Awe, called on well-meaning Nigerians to continue to contribute to their states to reduce the pressure on government.
