•Gets NSE fellowship in Abuja
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
The Group Managing Director of Sahara Group, Kola Adesina, has blamed the uncoordinated implementation of power sector strategies as partly responsible for the inability to achieve sufficiency in electricity supply nationwide.
Speaking when he received the fellowship award of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) in Abuja, the Sahara Group boss stated that industry players were used to working in silos, thereby hobbling the ability to see the sector as a full value chain.
He stressed that it was unacceptable that a country of over 200 million persons could only generate and transmit about 4,500MW to its citizens.
Describing the situation as appalling despite the country having some of the best brains worldwide, he argued that this excellence must be translated to making the sector work in Nigeria.
He dedicated the NSE recognition to the over 5,000 staff of Sahara Group, including those of Egbin power, Ikeja Electric, First Independent Power and others, explaining that without reliable power , there is no way the economy can grow.
“ In Nigeria today, we have over 200 million people, but appallingly, we are able to only dispense just about 4500 megawatts of electricity. Without electricity there can’t be a digital economy. Without electricity you cannot communicate, without electricity, there’s no agriculture and without electricity, the quality of life will be boring.
“The quantum of energy in the system today is absolutely insufficient for our population. Our population is growing phenomenally, whereas the infrastructure that needs to deliver the key services to serve as the engine to grow the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is lagging behind.
“There is a need for each and every one of us to go deeper into our minds and search for solutions that will help electrify Nigeria. The whole world is looking at us and wondering why we are in this situation. Why we can’t have light,” he stressed.
Noting that the award signified a mandate to do more, Adesina vowed that Sahara Group and its partners cannot afford to fail in the onerous task of supplying Nigerians stable power supply.
“The missing link has always been the fact that a lot of times people think in silos in Nigeria, they think just transmission alone, and they work on transmission, then you realise that generation is not there. And they work on generation and discover distribution is not catching up.
“Now it’s a value chain for a reason. And the reason is simply put, the fact that everything must work together. We have a population that is growing, infrastructure must grow and infrastructure must exceed the people and that is when a society that plans really always has it easy,” he noted.
According to him, Nigeria must get the gas availability issue resolved and begin to execute plans with the entire sector in mind.
In terms of funding, he explained that Nigeria has more than enough capacity, but said the money isn’t coming in because the market design today is not in any way encouraging or stimulating for investors to come in since they are not charitable ventures.
He argued that if the market design is done appropriately, and government is less present in that space, there will be more inflow of resources and funding to resolve the problem.
He maintained that if other nations that are not as big as Nigeria can supply 24 hours of electricity , there is no excuse why Nigeria should be lagging behind.
“One of the things I find a bit discouraging is that some of us go to schools in all these places. We go to Harvard, we go to Oxford, we go to Cambridge, and we’re best in class.
“ So why are we not using the talent to be able to resolve the problems we have in Nigeria? It is a question we all must find a way to answer. There is a missing link. And the missing link for me has always been, unfortunately, that we need to start to have an appropriate mind-set in Nigeria to unlock the potential of Nigeria,” he said.
Stressing that there’s a huge critical infrastructure gap in Nigeria, Adesina stated that execution has always been the missing link in Nigeria, explaining that although there are abundance of documents and great orators, implementation remains the weak link.
“ If we cannot implement, no matter how beautiful your idea is, it’s just dead on arrival. So we need to start to be able to execute projects in a manner that is reflective of the global best practices,” he noted.
