Examine how power supply will be stable under Tinubu- Fashola.

Raji Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has described how, if elected in 2023, he will deal with Nigeria’s power crisis. Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing He examined his manifesto’s Asiwaju Framework for Power and Energy Reform. On pages 30 to 32 of Asiwaju’s Action Plan for a Better Nigeria, titled Renewed Hope 2023, this is “clearly stated in the APC tradition of recognizing concerns and giving answers,” according to Fashola.

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First, according to Fashola, Tinubu recognizes at page 30 of the plan that the problems cannot be solved overnight. “He offers to eliminate the losses between generation and distribution by addressing the transmission problems that the current Presidential Power Initiative has started.” On page 31, he connects with the problem of end users relating to the provision of meters and offers support for domestic manufacturing on page 31.This is more than a paper policy. It speaks to many things, including Asiwaju’s known commitment to standing with people in need. It tells those who are victims of estimated billing that they are not invisible.

Fashola said further: “Asiwaju’s plan will therefore support meter asset providers.” On page 31, there is a renewable energy plan in the Asiwaju Framework, and this is the driver for rapid deployment of mini grids that I spoke about earlier, especially solar energy, which he formally addresses as a point of focus.

Apart from the employment and entrepreneurship benefits for suppliers, installers, and manufacturers, this places Nigeria at the center of the global energy debate and opens up a new market for carbon credits, which are estimated to be worth $261 billion globally, $50 billion for Africa, and $ 2.64 billion for Nigeria annually.

The number of generator power plants that can be replaced with solar and renewables is the low-hanging fruit.

The plan on Page 32 commits to a “Nigeria First Power Policy,” which is very important. It simply means our power development will not subordinate our energy needs to global energy policies that do not take into consideration the energy inequality between developed and developing nations.

Rural dwellers are visible to Asiwaju, as his plan clearly identifies them and their needs on Page 32. “He offers incentives and a change in policies that encumber investment in power in rural areas and seeks to mobilize local capacities in our universities and polytechnics to lead the research that unlocks the delivery of power to rural areas.”

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu

Below is his piece.

Dissecting Tinubu’s Manifesto for Power and Energy Reform

I have challenged people to ask themselves if they can remember anything the main opposition committed to when they were elected in 1999. For the next 16 years, they allowed Nigeria to drift without any clear policy direction or articulation. Other than slogans like “Transformation Agenda,” whose details were undisclosed, during a period of prolific earnings from very elevated international crude oil prices, I am yet to receive a response to a “Seven Point Agenda,” which later became a “Five Point Agenda.”

Unless it is hidden under their untrustworthy umbrella, we must accept that from 1999 to 2015, we surrendered 16 years of our lives to a party that made no credible promises and no recognizable commitment.

To those who may wonder why I chose to start my intervention this way, it is my answer to those who erroneously assert that politics in Nigeria is not about issues. They are wrong.

APC came into office by identifying the major issues confronting Nigeria before the 2015 general elections, and the national survey conducted showed that the issues at the top of voters’ minds were security, corruption, and the economy.

The APC made clear commitments about how to deal with those issues and got elected. As far as the economy is concerned, one of its necessary drivers is infrastructure, to which the APC has vigorously committed herself.

The results are manifesting with thousands of kilometers of roads and bridges, expanded airport runways and terminal buildings in five international airports, a new seaport in Lekki, the Ajaokuta, Kaduna, and Kano Gas Pipelines, seven trains of the NLNG, investment in the Dangote Refinery to support private sector initiatives for local production of petroleum products, as well as the upgrade of four existing refineries.

Why are these important, you might ask? Our opponents reluctantly acknowledge these giant strides but are unable to connect them to the economic opportunities they offer now to workers, construction companies, and suppliers who operate in this economy; and they are unable to see what this means for Nigeria’s economy in the future.

On one hand, they talk about stimulating the economy through “production,” but their home economics model does not address how anyone can expect to produce without roads, ports, bridges, or gas.

They are unable to link cost-push inflation to travel time, haulage costs, port delays, or even how the continued importation of petroleum products, which they have been unable to reverse in 16 years, affects the cost of living.

I doubt whether they appreciate that the port that they privatized has not produced the desired results, and it is the APC government that has rebuilt the Apapa to Oworonshoki road that evacuates the largest and busiest port in Nigeria, and it is the same government that is building the Lagos–Ibadan Highway that facilitates the distribution of goods and services.

Yet they want to privatize more. The importance of this part of my intervention is to demonstrate without a shadow of doubt that infrastructure is the foundation for building any economy, following which are policies that herald reforms.

The Buhari-led APC government has spent their time in office building this critical hardware of infrastructure, and many parts of the infrastructure for the power sector are already in place.

The agreement with Siemens, under the Presidential Power Initiative, seeks to remedy the shortcomings of the privatization they undertook in 2013, especially in the distribution sector, where some of those who acquired the DisCos do not have the necessary financial means to finance the investment required to guarantee power to homes and businesses.

These are massive numbers of distribution transformers and related assets. The Buhari Power Initiative seeks to deliver in three phases: critical and “quick win” interventions to increase the system’s end-to-end operational capacity (currently 5 GW) to 7 GW; distribution network bottlenecks to enable full use of existing generation and distribution capacities, bringing the system’s operational capacity to 11 GW; and total operational grid capacity of 25 GW in the long term, with commensurate upgrades and expansion of the national generation, transmission, and distribution systems.

The building and upgrading of 100 substations is critical to distribution. The purchase of 11 mobile substations will provide relief when local substations need repair or maintenance.

2,906 distribution transformers

The purchase and installation of 2,906 distribution transformers

In the same vein, many of the power plants constructed under the NIPP do not have sufficient gas supplies or transmission lines. I visited 23 out of the 28 generation plants in existence at a time. From Geregu to Omotosho to Papalanto and the Enron Power Station, gas supply was being rationed amongst turbines so that all the existing capacity could rarely be deployed.

This is partly what the Ajaokuta, Kaduna, and Kano Pipeline Project seeks to address. In other places, it was the transmission capacity that was struggling. This is what the Presidential Power Initiative is responding to by seeking to provide: the installation of distribution and transmission lines covering 11,650 kilometers. The Buhari government has also put in place a policy for mini-grids, supported by NERC Regulation No. MERC/-R/110/17 of 2017, that allows individuals and corporations to generate and distribute off-grid embedded power of up to 100 kW without approval and up to 1 MW with approval. This again puts a lie to the argument that the grid needs to be decentralized. It has been decentralized, and people need to take full advantage of the policy.

The government in office has led initiatives to embed power in markets like Ariaria, Sabon Gari, and Sura in Aba, Kano, and Lagos.

There have been nine initiatives on university campuses in total, with seven completed, with Phase 2 for an additional seven universities in procurement.

These are only part of 67 off-grid power projects already implemented by the APC government under the supervision of the Rural Electrification Agency. You might then ask, “Why are there still power outages?” My response is that there is still work to be done. The deployment of mini grids has not yet taken widespread application, and this is where the private sector needs to be made more aware of the policy and the regulator needs to be more proactive. I will come to this shortly. The Siemens Presidential Power Plan to address distribution and transmission and the gas projects are works in progress that have started and are at various stages of implementation and completion.

This brings me, therefore, to why we are here.

The Asiwaju Framework for Power and Energy Reform This is well articulated in the APC tradition of identifying issues and proposing solutions on pages 30–32 of Asiwaju’s Action Plan for a Better Nigeria, titled Renewed Hope 2023.

First, he recognizes on page 30 of the plan that the problems cannot be solved overnight. He offers to eliminate the losses between generation and distribution by addressing the transmission problems that the current Presidential Power Initiative has started. On page 31, he connects with the problem of end users relating to the provision of meters and offers support for domestic manufacturing on page 31.This is more than a paper policy. It speaks to many things, including Asiwaju’s known commitment to standing with people in need. It tells those who are victims of estimated billing that they are not invisible.

It is a message that Asiwaju sees them and offers a solution. It also demonstrates APC’s progressive credentials as a party committed to the improvement of the human condition.

The contrasting position is the policy on metering left by the main opposition before 2015, called CAPMI, an acronym for Credit Advanced Payment Metering Implementation, which required consumers to advance the cost of their meters to DisCos.

The Buhari government inherited this policy from the previous administration and also inherited complaints from the hundreds and thousands of advance payments for meters that were not supplied.

In effect, instead of advance payment for meters, it resembled advance fee fraud, as defined in the notorious Section 419 of the criminal code, with payments made for meters that were not supplied. The anti-corruption stance of the Buhari government could not share the same place with such a scheme and promptly dissociated itself from it as a government policy, leaving it to the discretion of the consumer whether to trust their supplier with advance payment.

In its place, the government, through the regulator, started a new policy: the MAP, an acronym for Meter Asset Provider, as a new business that focuses on meter provision and expands the value chain of the power sector beyond GenCos, TCNs, and DisCos.

Asiwaju’s plan will therefore support meter asset providers. On page 31, there is a renewable energy plan in the Asiwaju Framework, and this is the driver for rapid deployment of mini grids that I spoke about earlier, especially solar energy, which he formally addresses as a point of focus.

Apart from the employment and entrepreneurship benefits for suppliers, installers, and manufacturers, this places Nigeria at the center of the global energy debate and opens up a new market for carbon credits, which are estimated to be worth $261 billion globally, $50 billion for Africa, and $ 2.64 billion for Nigeria annually.

The number of generator power plants that can be replaced with solar and renewables is the low-hanging fruit.

The plan on Page 32 commits to a “Nigeria First Power Policy,” which is very important. It simply means our power development will not subordinate our energy needs to global energy policies that do not take into consideration the energy inequality between developed and developing nations.

Rural dwellers are visible to Asiwaju, as his plan clearly identifies them and their needs on Page 32. He offers incentives and a change in policies that encumber investment in power in rural areas and seeks to mobilize local capacities in our universities and polytechnics to lead the research that unlocks the delivery of power to rural areas.

Of course, I had earlier said that I would come back to speak about the regulator. (The Role of NERC, Ministry, and Manpower) Asiwaju’s plan clearly states this on Page 32 under “Power Sector Governance and Reforms,” where he offers “Reform of the Regulatory Structure” and “…improved efficiency and accountability for project management, design, procurement, construction, and remittances.” (Procurement costs and tariffs).

This clearly distinguishes us from the main or fringe opposition.We have the capacity to identify the problem, offer a solution, and mobilize resources to confront it.

The heavy lifting and hardware have been done under the Buhari government. Asiwaju is bringing the reform and connections that will propel the process to fruition.

Fashola is the Minister of Works and Housing.