Minister of Power, Chief Bayo Adelabu reacts to insinuation that the government is taking power away from the poor to service the rich.
“Let me also clarify the fact that at the last sensitization meeting that we had, where even NERC was in attendance, we resolved that those who might not enjoy 20 hours power supply should be identified and be downgraded to Band B and other compensation that would be necessary would be paid to them.
“Of course, we envisaged that we may not be able to achieve this 100 per cent, but if it is 80 or 85 per cent, we are moving somewhere. The fact we must recognize is that transformation in this sector is a journey, and we must start it from somewhere, and nobody has told us that it is going to be easy. We are going to face some resistance, but all we are saying is that we are going to discuss and we are going to have a common ground.
“The good thing about this is that number one, we have received a lot of positive feedbacks from some communitiesthat are having these 20 to 22 hours power supply. Where there are pockets of complaints, here and there. We are going to look at those cases. For those we would need to compensate, we are going to do that. But we must start from somewhere to get to where we are going. It is a journey and everybody should be ready to make some forms of sacrifice otherwise, this sector will continue to stagnate. That would not be good for this government because we have promised to transform the sector.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has identified the power sector as the critical sector that he will want to use to drive other critical sectors under his Renewed Hope Agenda and he is giving us that financial backing to succeed in this journey. We must start from somewhere; we cannot continue to stagnate.
“I can tell you that what we will have tomorrow will be better than what we have today. The resistance will come, and I can tell you that we will address it in a civil manner so that we will not offend one another. But the fact is that a number of communities are enjoying over 20 hours of power supply.
“On whether the other bands could be short-changed, that will not happen, because we are trying to ramp up demand, and we are trying to ensure that we increase power generation up to 6,000 megawatts within the next three months. We are trying to ensure that the power available will be able to go round both the premium band and other bands.