Nigeria Content Online

The former Minister
of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, said Tuesday that Nigeria’s total power
generation slumped to 1500 Megawatts in the middle of his tenure, down
from the 3700 Megawatts he met in December 2007.

Mr. Wya has been
re-nominated for a new term by the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan,
while his colleague, the substantive minister of power, Rilwan
Babalola, has been dropped. It is, however, not yet known if he will
remain at the Ministry of Power.

Speaking at the
senate ministerial screening where his nomination was considered for
approval yesterday, Mr. Wya told lawmakers that our nation’s power
generation capacity was itself unstable from his assumption at the
ministry on December 24, 2007, to his removal in early March 2010.

“I don’t want to
delve too much into that,” he said in response to a question raised by
a Senator on what the actual problem with electricity in our country is.

“But it is
important to say that we were faced with a challenge of what we could
not control.” The challenge, he said, was the inadequate supply of gas
which officials of the ministry have echoed in the past.

During an earlier
remark, which the senators rebuffed, the former minister had claimed
that the ministry under his watch, “toured the nation and was able to
improve power supply to a level which, however, was not commensurable
with the money spent.”

Power failure

The former minister
admitted, in response to a question by the Senate President, David
Mark, that the power production level plunged to 1500MW in the middle
of his tenure as the Minister of state.

“I thought you will
answer in a straightforward manner, whether power generation dropped or
increased during your stay in office,” Mr. Mark said, to which the
nominee confirmed there was a significant crash in the generation
level, a situation which he said was mainly caused by gas shortage.

Key officials of the power ministry had, before the dissolution of
the federal cabinet by Mr. Jonathan, repeatedly explained the extent of
the fall in power generation in the country. This was especially as the
December 31, 2009, target date for increasing the power generation to
6000MW, elapsed.