Lagos – The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) on Tuesday said that the population of Nigeria required about 160, 000 mega watts of electricity for regular power supply.
The General Secretary of the union, Mr Joe Ajaero, said this during an interaction with newsmen in Lagos.
Ajaero said that world standard of electricity supply gave 1,000 mw of electricity to one million people.
According to him, a country of more than 160 million people should have about 160, 000 mw of electricity.
“Already, there is power poverty in the country, because the world acclaimed standard is that wherever we have 1 million people, there must be 1000mw.
“If we have 160, million Nigerians and we are battling with 4,000mw, it is power poverty.
“Privatisation in the power sector has never succeeded anywhere in the world.
“The state funds the power sector; we can only begin to think of who manages it after making it viable.
“The money to build power stations and the transmission network is provided by the state because private sector does not have the resources required,’’ he said.
Ajaero said that the American Government generated 250, 000mw and it mandated municipals and the private sector to generate more to move it forward.
The NUEE scribe said that the government should have retained its 4, 000mw generated, while the private sector should be encouraged to generate more.
Ajaero, who doubles as Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, said that Nigerians would continue to protest as long as the electricity supply was poor and the billing system high.
He said: “the power situation does not improve by just saying, `let there be light,’ it comes with finance and commitment.
“If the people do not have electricity and you are charging them high, there is bound to be protests.
The union scribe added that before the privatisation of the power sector, there should have been over 1million prepaid metres for Nigerians.
According to him, Nigerians will start to speak after a year of privatization, without appreciable improvement.
“I think Nigerians may start to speak but I am not sure they have started to speak,’’ he noted.
Ajaero added that some of the union members had not received their terminal entitlements after a series of bio metric verifications.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that many Nigerians have been protesting poor supply of power and exorbitant bills across the nation. (NAN)