Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, on Tuesday commissioned a 1.2 megawatts (MW) solar power plant donated to Nigeria by the Japanese government.
Fashola, who is working on raising Nigeria’s power profile through various energy mixes, inspected the plant at Lower Usama, Bwari Abuja.
“We want to get incremental power first, short-term objective. Energy anywhere, we can get it because the energy is not enough,” he said in an interview.
“Five thousand megawatts, which was our peak production in February this year, is not enough for a country of over 100 million people. We will get it from everywhere — from gas, solar, hydro from nuclear and biomass.”
Nigeria, which currently generates less than 5,000MW of power, is billed to raise its energy profile to at least 6,000MW by the end of 2016.
According to President Muhammadu Buhari, “Nigerians’ favourite talking point and butt of jokes is the power situation in our country. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is no longer a laughing matter.
“We must and by the grace of God we will put things right. In the three years left for this administration we have given ourselves the target of ten thousand megawatts distributable power.
“In 2016 alone, we intend to add two thousand megawatts to the national grid. This sector has been privatised but has yet to show any improvement in the quality of service.”
Power generation is noted by the World Bank Doing Business report as one of the major hindrances to doing business in Nigeria.
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