President of the Nigerian Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to declare a state of emergency in the power sector to overcome the challenges threatening regular power supply in the country.
Confirming this today in Abuja, Ezrel Tabiowo, Mr Lawan’s Special Assistant on Press, noted that the Senate President stated this while declaring open a one-day round-table discussion with the theme: “Addressing Nigeria’s Power Problems” organized by the Senate Committee on Power.
“For me, if there’s any sector of our economy that is so important and yet so challenged, it is the power sector. I believe that this is a sector that needs a declaration of emergency,” he said.
“This is an opportunity for us in this round-table to exhaustively discuss not only the problems of the power sector in Nigeria, but the solutions and way forward.
“The truth is that we all know what is wrong. What we really need to do is to have the political will to take on the challenges generally.
“From the electricity power reform of 2005 to the privatization of Gencos and Discos and to what is happening today, we know that everything is fraud. If we play the ostrich, in the next ten years we will be talking about the same things,” he added.
“Our industries and businesses must be able to produce things that can compete favourably with products produced in other countries in Africa. We are not in that position today, and we all know the consequences of that,” he explained.
