Peter Obi, the former Labour Party presidential candidate, has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration over the state of electricity in Nigeria. Tinubu promised to provide uninterrupted electricity within four years, but the reality is far from it.
Nigeria’s national grid has collapsed multiple times under Tinubu’s administration, plunging millions into darkness. Over 90 million Nigerians still lack access to electricity, while many others get only 4-6 hours of power per day. Obi also highlighted the disparity in electricity generation between Nigeria and other African countries like South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria.
South Africa, with 30% of Nigeria’s population, generates over 40,000 megawatts of electricity, while Nigeria struggles to produce less than 10,000 megawatts. Egypt, with half of Nigeria’s population, generates a similar amount of power, and Algeria, with 20% of Nigeria’s population, surpasses 50,000 megawatts.
Obi recalled Tinubu’s campaign vow in a statement saying, ‘’Lest we forget, If I Don’t Obi Give You Constant Electricity in The Next 4 Years, Don’t Vote for Me for Second Term For a nation already stated to have more people living without electricity than anywhere in the world, there could not be any more firm comforting political promise than this.
‘’Yet APC and its current government have presided over more national grid failures and power outages than any government in our history. There are now repeated blackouts despite billions in power investments”.
“Over the years, billions of dollars have been spent on the power sector in Nigeria. In fact, Nigeria has spent more on power generation with little or no increase in supply, than countries like Vietnam, Egypt, Indonesia, and Bangladesh yet, while some of these nations have proudly doubled their electricity generation, and distribution by adding tens of thousands of megawatts to transform their economies and increase their GDP, Nigeria has barely crawled from 4,500MW to 5,000MW.” Obi added.
It’s worth noting that there’s some inconsistency in Obi’s statements, as he’s also been quoted as saying Tinubu is fulfilling his campaign promises. However, his recent criticisms seem to reflect a more nuanced view of the administration’s performance.
