The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, yesterday, commenced the screening of the 46 non-career ambassadorial nominees, with the exercise taking place in total darkness. The ugly development followed a power outage that occurred at one half of the Senate New Building complex venue of the event, midway into the exercise and lasted for about one and half hours.
When the outage initially occurred, the expectation was that the screening would be paused for power to be restored, but the Chairman of the Committee, Monsurat Sunmonu, and other members of the Committee defied the darkness and continued with the exercise. The venue, which later became stuffy and virtually unbearable was, however, partially illuminated with phone torchlight, while camera men beamed their inbuilt camera lights to illuminate the screening arena to be able to get sharp images of the persons they wanted to capture.
Former Supreme Court Justice, George Oguntade, who was among the 14 ambassadorial nominees screened yesterday, told journalists after he emerged from the screening session that he was not perturbed at being screened in the dark room due to power cut. He said that he has lived all his life in Nigeria and has become familiar with epileptic power supply in the country.
Those screened were Goni Modu Zanna Bura (Yobe), Yusuf Maitama Tuggar (Bauchi), Ahmed Ibeto (Niger), Kabiru Umar (Sokoto), Garba Gajam (Zamfara) and Baba Madugu (Bauchi).
Others were Baba Ahmad Jidda (Borno), Bala Mohammed Mairiga (Zamfara), Christopher Okere (Anambra), Etuborn Asuquo (Cross River) and Nurudeen Mohammed (Kwara). Also screened were Amin Muhammad Dalhatu (Jigawa), Ahmed Nuhu Bamali (Kaduna), Prof. Dandatti Abdulkadir (Kano), Justice Isa Dodo (Katsina), Prof. Mohammed Yisa (Kwara), Mrs. Modupe Irele (Lagos) and Suzanne Folarin (Ogun). Gen. Ashimiyu Olaniyi (Oyo), Oriji Ngofa (Rivers), Jonah Odo (Ebonyi) and Eniola Ajayi (Ekiti) also made the list.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has queried the utilisation of N2.74 trillion spent on the power sector from 1999 to 2015, saying the sector depreciated more as more funds were pumped into it. Dogara, who was speaking at a two-day stakeholders’ interactive dialogue/ workshop on the Nigerian power sector organised by the National Assembly, also noted that the challenges faced by the sector calls for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to address them.
The speaker asked: “The most important question is what happened to the N2.74 trillion spent on the sector from 1999-2015? Why is it that the more we spent on the power sector, the more darkness we attract?”
He said the National Assembly organised the workshop as a platform for power sector experts and other stakeholders to do a holistic diagnosis of the challenges impeding the development of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) and proffer practical solutions.
“These challenges run across the entire power value chain of generation, transmission and distribution. The myriad issues are apparently exacerbated by inadequate funding, poor energy mix, fuel supply issues, flawed regulatory framework and commercial issues, among others.
“There is, therefore, a need for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to address these myriad problems,” he stated. Posing series of questions, the speaker continued: “Why has power generation remained at less than 5000 megawatts since the last 56 years? Why have various policies by successive governments failed?
“Why has the transmission infrastructure remained inadequate in wheeling the available power? How can the Federal Government rapidly expand the transmission infrastructure?
“Why are electric meters not available to most consumers thereby leading to contentious estimated billing? How can NERC establish a cost reflective tariff and reduce inefficiency in support of affordable end user tariffs?
“Why has there not been an effective gas master plan for Nigeria which would have preceded the building of the gas fired power plants? What is the solution to the perennial pipeline vandalism that disrupts delivery of gas to the gas fired power plants? What can be done to improve local and foreign investment in gas gathering, processing and distribution?”
On his part, the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, noted that the problems facing the sector were made as a result of fraudulent tendency and ignorance. Saraki, therefore, said that sacrifices should be made to address the issues.
He noted that during privatisation of the sector, licences, among others, were sold to people who had no knowledge of the business. “We must be blunt and we must accept mistakes, sacrifices must be made. Some of the problems are fraudulently, ignorantly and intentionally made.”
The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, in his speech, said that electricity was not cheap and commiserate tariff should be put into consideration. He appealed to the leadership of the National Assembly to enact laws that would give stiffer punishment to those tampering with power installations, especially in the area of vandalism.
Fashola noted that about 3,000 megawatts of power had been de-commissioned as a result of vandalism. “The bills that are sent to National Assembly should be given appropriate attention, so that they can be made into law.
“There should be amendment of laws to ensure that there is stiffer punishment meted out on those who tampered with power,” he said. In his keynote address, Mr. Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holding, said that: “We must fix power to fix Nigeria. If we do not fix power, every other thing remains an illusion.”
He explained that there would be challenges the nation may face if the power sector was not fixed. Elumelu insisted that all stakeholders, including the judiciary, the private sector, and power regulators must play a role to address the issue of power. He advised leaders to stop the blame game, adding that knowledgeable people should be put in the power sector and not using quota system. “Let’s look for Nigerians who have track records,” he stated.
No comments:
Post a Comment