Nigerians have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, over the frequent collapse of the national and the two weeks power outage across states in the Northern part of Nigeria.
The call was made by the President of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo, and the Lead Director of the Centre for Social Justice, Eze Onyekpere, in separate interviews.
They described the blackout that affect about 15 states as a national embarrassment of which the minister must take full responsibility and be made to leave.
Darkness has persisted in the region despite assurances by the minister and his agents. Adelabu on Monday said power would be restored to the region within five days. This is coming after similar failed premises by the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
TCN had consistently assured that power would be temporarily restored through the Ugwuaji APIR 330kV Line; however, citizens in the region still await power restoration as they count their losses economically.
Speaking to the Daily Post, Olubiyo said the blackout in Northern Nigeria is a national embarrassment.
He called for a declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector, suggesting that the country’s national grid should be decentralised into ten industrial hubs to ensure efficiency.
According to him, institutional corruption has crippled TCN, which has resulted to inefficiency.
Olubiyo called for the suspension of the Minister of Power and the TCN managing director, Sule Abdulaziz, to give room for a proper investigation into the sector.
“This is a national embarrassment to Nigeria. The president should not treat this with levity. Over 10 days without power supply in the Northern region is what constitutes a declaration of state of emergency in the sector.
“The blackout is demarketing the government. We had raised issues on emergency procurement by TCN without bearing or impact on the grid. There is institutional capture and corruption in the sector. Because all the loans collected to improve the industry are nowhere to be found.
“If there is no proper investment in the sector, we cannot expect to have results in the power sector.
“There is a need to decentralise the grid into ten industrial regions. The problem of the industry is purely corruption and institutional inefficiency.
“We are saying that this should not continue. Whoever is at the helm of affairs, Mr. President should ask them to step aside for proper investigation. Whether it is the Minister of Power or the Managing Director of TCN, they should step aside.
“It is a national embarrassment that deserves a presidential fiat,” he said.
Also, Eze Onyekpere said that President Tinubu should relieve Adelabu of his duty as minister.
According to him, the persistent outage in the northern region of Nigeria ought not to have lingered if the country’s emergency response team is working properly.
He added that the Nigerian security chiefs and the Minister of Power, are complicit in this.
“It is not surprising; there is a general security failure in Nigeria. The vandalization of the transmission line did not just happen overnight but was planned by terrorists.
“The expectation is that the government ought to be up to speed in tackling insecurity. There would be a quick response strategy on the part of the government to respond to the situation because an outage should not be allowed to happen above 10 days.
“It is a failure on the security and the minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu. He should be sacked. I am surprised he is still the minister.
“It is incompetence on the part of the security agencies and the Minister, that is why there is a power outage in the northern region,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Tunji Bolaji, the spokesperson to the minister, said that the government is working to restore power supply to the region, but did not state exactly when.
“We are working day and night to ensure that power is restored to the Northern region.
“If you look at TCN remarks on the matter, there is ongoing work to ensure temporary bulk supply is restored to the region.
“We have to enlighten our people; they should guard government infrastructures from being vandalized. The vandals live within the community.
“This will help, together with what the federal government is doing to protect critical infrastructure.
“The Minister of Power already spoke with the office of the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Army Staff, to ensure security of electricity infrastructures”.
The blackout has totally crippled economic activities in the affected states amidst outrageous rise in petrol price and inflation.
