By Adaobi Rhema Oguejiofor
The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) has called on the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to declare a state of emergency in the Nigerian power sector when he resumes office.
The President of the Union, Comrade Martins Uzoegwu, made this call while also stating that the time has come for the sector to be modified in order to enable Nigeria and its citizens have access to stable power supply.
Uzoegwu claimed that the privatization of the sector, which took place about nine years ago, was conceived to defraud Nigeria. According to him, the privatization policy was designed to fail because nine years after, no megawatt (MW) has been added and no power plant has been built by either the investors in the sector or the government.
The NUEE Chief said that the government still wants the private sector to reposition the power sector even though the indices show that there were less than 4,000 megawatts for about N200 million people.
In his own words, “before privatization, we were doing about 4,000 megawatts. Sometimes we did about 5,000 megawatts. But, do you know that after privatization, we have not gone about 4,000 megawatts? In fact, we are below 4,000 megawatts. So, it has been a disaster. Privatization has not added any value to our economy, instead it has compounded it.”
Uzoegwu explained that the Union wants the incoming President to critically look into the issue of privatization in the power sector, as the whole idea is a scam.
In his words, “for us, if there’s any sector that is so important and yet so challenged, it is the power sector. I believe that this is a sector that needs a declaration of emergency.”