A former member of the House of Representatives, Ladi Adebutu, has suggested that states should be allowed to generate and transmit electricity to citizens.
He said such will further boost the industry of each state.
He stated this during the third edition of the Ladi Adebutu Good Governance Symposium, held at Ota, Ogun state.
The convener of the symposium in his remarks stated that the lack of electricity has brought downturn to the economy, adding that no one is immune.
“The lack of electricity brings on us a curse. It brings on us the curse of expensive generators and this curse takes money out of every pocket in Nigeria. Even the perpetrators of this folly pay for it. We all pay for expensive diesel,” he stated.
Adebutu called on the state government to parallel generation, transmission facilities, distribution facilities in order to create a conducive environment for industries, which according to him, are relocating from Ogun industrial hub due to lack of power supply and road infrastructure.
“The states should be allowed and truly enabled to build parallel generating facilities, transmission facilities and distribution facilities. What the constitution says is; don’t carry electricity to another state.
“Why are we for God’s sake, in a God blessed Ogun state have we not created a parallel electricity system? Why are we waiting for Federal transmission system, federal generating systems?
“We should create competition for them. Let us allow investment from outside and let us allow competition for them from outside,” he added.
Meanwhile, the executive director for Research and Advocacy of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Sunday Oduntan, also stated that Nigerians spend about N12 trillion on self power generation annually.
Oduntan, while delivering his paper, titled ‘Power for Sustainable Development in Ogun state’ said Nigerian homes and businesses produce about 40,000 megawatts of electricity with diesel and petrol per annum.
