Mar 7, 2011
   
*Oshiomhole urges labour to embark on nation-wide protest
BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG

LAGOS – THE Commonwealth Business Council, CBC, said, weekend, that Nigeria was losing $100 billion yearly due to lost output and high costs for local businesses.
This came as the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, urged Labour leaders in the country to organise a day of national protest against continued power failure in the country.
The Commonwealth Business Council’s review also came amidst the revelation by the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Corporation, SPDC, Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, that Nigeria was the seventh largest natural gas resource holder in the world CBC Director General, Dr Mohan Kaul, who spoke at a two-day power summit on Nigeria organized by the body in London, said: “The government estimates that lack of power costs the Nigerian economy $100bn every year through lost output and high costs for local businesses.”
Kaul, who expressed optimism that the country, being the 10th biggest oil reserve in world, could build a secured and diversified power system from purely energy sources, noted that in spite of the various challenges, the business environment in Nigeria had changed‘significantly for the better.

Lack of electricity

Noting that the Presidential Task Force on Power, PTFP, and the World Bank had identified the lack of electricity as a major factor inhibiting development, he said: “Growth has been strong despite weak infrastructure, and the potential for even faster growth has never been better.
Privatisation has achieved more in the last year than it had in the last ten. There is a growing consensus in the industry and on the streets that finally, the sun may be about to shine on the Nigerian power sector.”
Meantime, Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has urged labour leaders to declare a day of national protest against power outages in the country.
Oshiomhole who was addressing the delegates and other guests at the just concluded 10th National Delegates Conference of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in Abuja, said the nation could not continue to run its economy and other activities on generators.
While faulting the noise going round about the nation generating 4000 megawatts of electricity, Oshiomhole said Nigeria cannot be producing 4,000megawatts of power, unless the government was reducing issue of power supply to a joke.
He lamented that successive governments had continued to promise on stable power supply to no avail and urged Nigerians to reject the Federal Government policy of shifting the goal post on stable power supply.

Stable power supply

He said: “NLC’s voice must be loud in condemning the fact that in12 years of democracy Nigeria is celebrating importation of petroleum products, exporting skills to Europe and importing poverty into the land.
How can we explain that Nigeria is still a net importer of petroleum products? The resulting poverty is not an act of God it will not be solved by prayer and clerics fasting on Fridays on and Sundays.
We must get the Federal Government to return Nigeria and Nigerians back to work. Anybody that wants to be President must make a deal that he will make sure that existing refineries are working and additionally, he must set up new refineries.
“Comrades, we must tell them, we must speak beyond rhetoric. Nigeria cannot be producing 4,000 megawatts of power this is reducing us to a joke. You can’t run the economy on generator.
“We want to see rhetoric commensurate with output; we want to see a sharp increase in power supply chain. We do not want to be depending on generators. We want to see the dividend of democracy and this is not acceptable, because if they lack memory, you must have memory.
President Obasanjo told us to give him nine months and he will deliver power and now it is twelve years and they are shifting the goal post.
You must say no more shifting of goal post, either today or never. Labour must fix a date for protest against darkness because poverty is being induced.”
Nigeria, seventh largest natural gas resource holder -  SPDC
Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Corporation, SPDC, Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, said Nigeria has been ranked as the seventh largest natural gas resource holder in the world.
Sunmonu who made the announcement at the two_day power summit organized by the Commonwealth Business Council in London, noted that with the discovery of coal in excess of 600 Component Test Facility, CTF, the country was yet to explore it.
He said: “Replacing gas with coal for electricity generation is the cheapest and fastest way to meet the carbon dioxide (Co2) reduction target.”
Sunmonu said that SPDC now operated 650 mw combined circle plant at the Afam thermal station, thereby contributing about 20 per cent to Nigeria’s power generation.
He added: “SPDC, which is a pioneer supplier of gas to the Nigerian economy, has remained the single largest supplier with nearly 70 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign domestic gas utilisation.”
Sunmonu, who noted that the global energy demand and electricity generation would increase by 49 percent and 37 per cent respectively by 2035, said government’s power roadmap was timely.

This article and articles like it which help quantify the negative impact of no power on Nigeria are imo VERY important for well-meaning Nigerians to read and understand.

On some level, ACN, PDP, CPC, corruption, GEJ, Buhari, etc are all less important for the progress of Nigeria than solving this single issue. It is pretty much the key.

**Bump**

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