Nigerians have taken to the Internet to criticise President Goodluck Jonathan for the drop in power generation from a peak of 4,517 megawatts attained on December 21, 2012 to 3,443MW on Tuesday.
A significant 1,074MW was lost in power generation on Monday following a whopping 1,529.4MW on April 6, 2013 due to what power ministry’s sources called low gas supply to thermal power plants.
Nigerians, who saw the regular gas excuse as flimsy, chided the president for the poor power situation in the country.
Dr. Pat Kolawole Awosan, who commented on the story, ‘Power generation drops by 1,074’ published by The PUNCH on Tuesday, blamed the Federal Government and Jonathan in particular for the country’s poor power generation/supply.
“If all President Goodluck Jonathan’s so-called team in the PHCN could generate is 2,987megawatts with all the promises he had made to Nigerians, then it has been all talks without real action on the ground to complement the promises of guaranteed regular power supply,” he said.
Another reader, who simply identified himself as Truth is bitter, expressed disappointment over the drop in power generation and heaped the blame on the president.
“Nigeria’s power supply journey has been characterised by 100 metres forward steps and 120 metres reverse steps. It is a pity that the president has really disappointed us,” he said.
Mr. Dele Odugbemi said it was shameful that the country could not generate 40 per cent of its power needs despite huge resources available to the government.
He said, “It is disgusting and shameful that Nigeria still lives in darkness at 53 with all the natural endowments readily available in the country that we can tap to generate over 50,000 MW in 10 years if we have good, responsible, honest, credible and focused president and government at the federal level.
“We need to sit down as a people and decide the best structures that will bring developments to this country, otherwise Nigeria will collapse before our eyes very soon.”
The power generation report provided by the Ministry of Power revealed that peak generation as of Saturday April 6, 2013 was 2,987.6 MW, while the peak demand forecast was 10,200MW. Energy generation was put at 68,953.24 megawatts hours, while the actual energy sent out was 67,360.24MWH.
This is considered by power industry analysts as a huge break from the highest peak generation of 4,517 MW on December 21, 2012 and 98,580MWH energy on December 19, 2012, one of the highest ever sent out in the country.
When contacted, the Assistant Director, Press, Power Ministry, Mrs. Pat Deworitshe, confirmed that power generation had dropped and ascribed the development to “general system collapse.
“There is a general system collapse. I just spoke with the MD, Power Generation Station, Egbin, and he said there was a general system collapse. However, we are trying our best to fix it so that everybody can enjoy power supply,” she said.
