By Gift Chapi Odekina
The House of Representatives on Thursday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a State of Emergency on the power sector following challenges facing the aector.
The decision followed a motion of Urgent Public Importance moved by Rep. Nnolim Nnaji (PDP-Enugu) during plenary presided over by the Speaker, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila on Thursday.
Presenting the motion tagged “Urgent Need to Declare State of Emergency in the Power Sector”, Nnolim emphasised that the challenges in the sector were connected to most of the country’s problems.
“Absence of electricity for long periods causes discomfort and hampers productivity. It is also a known fact that electricity consumption has become a parameter by which the standard of living as well as the level of industrialisation of a nation is measured.
“There is an ongoing failure of the sector to provide adequate electricity supply to domestic households and industrial producers, despite being a rapidly growing economy.
“At best, average daily power supply is estimated at four hours, although several days can go by without any power at all. We are having a serious decline in power generation, thus the idea of our great nation generating 2,000 to 3,000 MW or less is highly unacceptable,” he said.
The lawmaker said that fixing the energy crises in Nigeria was of paramount importance.
“It will help to reduce crime rate, create employments, reduce health hazards, reduce urban migration, reduce high production costs in our industries, reduce post-harvest losses in agriculture, increase the generation and distribution of water supply, boost small and medium scale entrepreneurs, eradicate poverty, attract foreign investors and generally revitalise the economy and developmental agenda of our nation, ” he said.
He recalled that the National Electric
