2023: How I’ll tackle Nigeria’s electricity problem -Ayade



A frontline presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade has laid out his plans on how he would address Nigeria’s electricity problem should he become the country’s next president.

Ayade unveiled his blueprint in an interview in Calabar at the weekend.

He decried the current approach of using gas-fired turbines to generate electricity, describing it as dysfunctional.

The governor whose administration has built two power plants in Calabar with a combined capacity of 50 megawatts, said “the energy mix of Nigeria is dysfunctional because you cannot use gas to fire turbines to be able to generate electricity. It is a bit medieval.

“Gas today has too many alternatives. A small country like Qatar exports gas as their core business and they are doing so well. They are number one exporter of ammonia. Nigeria can build her ammonia plant. We can have our heterogenous fertilizer plant, we can do so much with the gas.”

He said as President, his focus would rather be on hydropower and renewable energy, “using solar, using underwater current systems, using copper-plated blades to draw and run hydro turbines to generate electricity from saliferous acuival and from saliferous water sources such as the Atlantic Ocean.

“If you have a major turbine in Calabar to drive power up to Maiduguri, if you have a major turbine in Port Harcourt to drive power to Kano, if you have a major turbine in Lagos to drive power to Sokoto, you would have had three master transmission lines managed by private companies.

“Government should hands off power transmission because the vertical mercantile structure that has a guarantee from world Bank that guarantees that whether you take electricity or not you must pay, has created a situation where people luxuriate on that and make money without power generation. And because it is a captive transmission line, dedicated under the monopoly of the federal government, its inadequacies bring this national power challenges.

“So when you have a licensed structure where different regions have different power suppliers like Siemens, for example, supplying Niger Delta, General Electric supplying South-East and General Electric feels it is better to go solar and decides to have massive solar farms and generate electricity, it will solve our energy crisis. Same thing for those who supply the North-East. They could decide that the wind is good and decides to use wind turbines.”

Is This How Governor Ayade Will Leave Us?

BY AGBA JALINGO MAR 08, 2022

In 447 days time from now, Governor Ayade will share the grace from office. He will stop being our governor. In case you don't understand; he will hand over to a new governor and become former governor. But the actual grace sharing begins after the primaries of the political parties which must hold and be completed within the next five months. Even before and after then, politicking takes over everything. Governance grinds to a total halt.


But I have been thinking and picking my teeth and wondering that, like play, like play, is this how Governor Ayade will just leave us?


1. Without a superhighway, an evacuation corridor where we will drive from Calabar to Obudu with a glass of water on the trunk of the car and the glass will not shake?

2. Without turning Bakassi to Lugano?

3. Without resettling the Bakassi IDPs?

4. Without, a deep sea port in Bakassi?

5. Without Ikom Chocolates in the stores?

6. Without poles, piles and pylons in even Bedwell market in Calabar?

7. Without even a face towel from garment factory in any shop on Marian road in Calabar?

8. Without a rice city churning out highly improved "Calas 77" seeds to the rest of Nigeria to generate N70billion annually for Cross River and decouple the State from federal allocation?

9. Without a trademark roofing sheet or tile from Yala roofing tile factory, in the market?

10. Without Bekwara groundnut oil in the market?

11. Without Obubra cassava processing factory starch in the stores?

12. Without thousands of Cross Riverians on the Ayadecare insurance scheme?

13. Without a functional passenger and cargo airport in Obudu?

14. Without registering an airline or getting an AOC?

15. With a chicken processing factory that functions only during the Yuletide?

16. Without a cotton farm in Yala to feed the garment factory?

17. With brown roofs in Calabar without changing every roof to blue roof?

18. Without a spaghetti fly over?

19. With a depleted green forest and murderous wood barons?

20. Without a bag of Ogoja rice in the market from a bubbling rice mill in Ogoja?

21. With a nearly decapitated civil service?

22. With children been driven away from primary schools for illegal levies?

23. Without Ayadecare Specialist Hospitals in the three senatorial districts?

24. Without Centricot, Northicot and Calas Vegas?

25. Without a petrocross vessel to rake in revenue for our State?

26. Without a vessel to ship merchandize from Cross River to the world?

27. Without a revolutionary robotic and artificial intelligence innovation?

28. Without flying essential drugs to remote areas in Cross River with drones?

29. Without a functional 23 megawatts electricity generating plant in Calabar or 26 megawatts in Tinapa?

30. Without building two megawatts electricity generating plants in each of the 18 Local Government Areas of the State, through Industrial Project Services (IPS) from South Africa?

31. Without a single drug manufactured from CalaPharm?

32. Without a functional toothpick factory in Ekori?

33. Without a functional Cross River microfinance bank?

34. Without a banana processing farm in Odukpani?

35. Without the anti-tax committee ending taxation of people earning 50k and below?

36. Without stopping indigenes from paying fees in UNICROSS as he promised?

37. Without the monorail which he opened himself in Calabar?

38. Without Ayade food banks anywhere in the State?

39. Without kisime Noddles in the market?

40. With just food on the table for a few?

41. Without delivering the Ugep polytechnic?

42. Without delivering the Ogoja Polytechnic?

43. Without take-off of Teachers Institute in Biase LGA?

44. Without take-off of Canadian School in Obudu?

45. Without a solar panel manufacturing factory, opposite Brigadier Ally cantonment?

46. Without a Cambodian King grass plantation that grows with lush, to solve the farmers/herders crises in Nigeria and raise revenue for our State?

47. Without a social housing estate for the Aborigines of Obudu ranch?

48. Without fixing the State Library?

49. Without the Mopol barracks in Okworotung Obudu?

50. Without turning around the moribund Obudu Cattle Ranch?

These were just some of our governor's promises amongst others. Once the cameras roll in front of him, the promises begin to cascade like the springs of Obudu Ranch. He promised a bag full and has achieved little. Scattered all over our State today are monuments of infantile passion about industrialization without direction, that will serve as mementos of the trappings of a governor who knew how to talk but could not do.

Governor Ayade remains a shining and fantastic example of how passion alone and ideas do not translate to delivery. He is an epitome of a plan-less leader and a reflection of what a disaster plan-lessness and impulse leadership can wreck.

If you rely on optics and oratory, Ayade will win Nigeria's best governor any day. But the reality on the ground is not far from me. It is within my grasp, because I am involved.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

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