Engr Razaq Obe, the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources in Ondo State, has appealed to the Federal Government and president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to sustain the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI).
He made this call in an interview with Outlook Media on Thursday at the just concluded Nigeria International Energy Summit in Abuja (NIES2023).
According to him, the federal government must fulfill its promise to significantly improve the country’s power sector. He noted that realising the PPI would impact Nigeria’s power sector meaningfully.
Obe said the country’s power supply capacity would increase from 4 gigawatts to 25 gigawatts if the initiative is fully implemented.
“The presidential power initiative is one of the most successful initiatives by this current government. We want to encourage the incoming government to ensure that by 2025, the 25 gigawatts promised is delivered to Nigerians.
“We are happy to see all those transformers coming from Germany to Nigeria; we are happy to see them installed at different substations. We are appealing to the federal government to make this come through. It will grow Nigeria’s available power from 4 gigawatts to 25 gigawatts which will be a quantum leap for our country. We appeal to the federal government not to relent”.
This year’s NIES with the theme, ‘Global Perspectives for a Sustainable Energy Future’ kick-started on the 16th and ended on the 20th of April 2023. The PPI is a £63 million deal between the federal government and Siemens to boost Nigeria’s power capacity. The Federal Executive Council approved it in December 2021.