Atiku says FG adopting power policy he proposed over 20 years ago
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that the Federal Government’s recent shift towards decentralising electricity generation validates a power sector model he says he proposed more than two decades ago.
In a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, the former vice-president argued that the Tinubu administration’s acknowledgement that Nigeria can no longer rely solely on large, centralised power plants was a belated acceptance of his long-standing position on electricity reforms.
“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,” Atiku said.
He criticised the administration for increasing electricity tariffs before implementing reforms capable of improving power supply.
“A government that thinks before it acts would have fixed the system before asking citizens to pay more,” he said.
“Unfortunately, this administration has done the exact opposite — raising tariffs first and only now beginning to think about the reforms required to justify those increases.”
The former vice-president said that while serving between 1999 and 2007, he consistently advocated a decentralised electricity generation model that would harness Nigeria’s hydro, solar, gas and other energy resources.
According to him, he declined to chair the Power Sector Reform Committee set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo because he disagreed with its emphasis on gas-fired electricity generation.
