*“THE TRUE SITUATION OF ELECTRIC POWER IN NIGERIA TODAY AND THE PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE” BEING TEXT OF SPEECH BY H.E BABATUNDE RAJI FASHOLA, SAN AT THE NIGERIA-SOUTH AFRICA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (NSACC) OCTOBER 2018 BREAKFAST FORUM*

Thank you for inviting me to be your speaker at this Breakfast meeting and for choosing the topic, that seeks to know where we are, and where we are heading as regards power supply.

I think I will like to start by setting a context as to why I feel qualified to speak here and also about the subject without sounding immodest.

First, I think you deem me qualified by your invitation. Next reason of course is that, by virtue of my current office as Minister for Power, Works and Housing you expect me to know.

Furthermore, for those of you who live in Lagos, my tenure as governor heralded the development of Independent Power Plants in Iju, Lagos Island, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja GRA, Lekki Phase 1 and Lekki Free Zone, all of which were targeted at supplying power to public institutions and facilities like the water works, courts, schools, and street lighting, except the Free Zone which was for commerce.

Most importantly I have visited almost all of Nigeria’s power plants in operation and those under construction, the National Control Centre, all the Distribution Companies, Major Transmission Sub-Stations and I know their current state of operation.

In addition, for 29 months, I had monthly meetings with all the operators in the power value chain across Nigeria’s states and commissioned not a few transmission and distribution assets.

Of course, I am not an engineer, but I have many brilliant Engineers who work with me and advise me.

I am also not an arm-chair analyst. I speak about what I have seen and experienced.

This background is important as context to the matter which you wish me to speak about, which is the real status of progress in the Power Sector.

So too are two other items of context; namely, where we were in 2015, and what we promised.

If you do not define your Goal against your reality, progress will be difficult to recognize.

As to where we were in 2015, power generation was averaging 4,000 MW; transmission was averaging 5,000 MW and distribution was averaging 3,000 MW.

As to what we promised, I stated in my very first public briefing in November 2015 that contrary to previous practice, we were committing to a journey; first of getting incremental power, with the plan to proceed to steady power, and ultimately get uninterrupted power.

I made it clear that our intention was to improve your power supply experience gradually rather than discuss the megawatts as quantum of power, and that any reference to the megawatts would be measuring milestones of our progress in the journey of incremental power.

As to where we are today: from 4,000MW, generation has reached 7,000MW, averaging incremental generation of 1,000 MW every year since 2015;

Transmission has reached 7,000MW from 5,000MW, averaging 666 MW of incremental transmission every year; and

Distribution peaked at 5,222MW in January of this year, from about 3,000 MW in 2015, averaging 740 MW incremental distribution capacity every year.

We have moved the needle forward – I see progress.

This was the essence of my promise to you that we will increase the available capacity and your experience will get better; however, we have not finished our work.

How far we can go depends on what those of you who will decide who forms the next government do when you vote.

You will compare our record of three years with what we met after the previous 16 (sixteen) years.

If you compare our performance record in three years with the 16 - year record of the previous administration in the areas of Generation, Transmission and Distribution you will get the following instructive results: Incremental Generation of 1000MW per year against 4000MW in 16 years which amounts to 250MW per year; Transmission capacity improvement