The Speaker of the Nigeria’s House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara
said that successive administrations from 1999 to 2015 spent nearly
N3 trillion on the power sector without recording much success.
Mr. Dogara noted that within the stated period, when the Peoples
Democratic Party controlled Nigeria at the centre, it was as if the
more money Nigeria spent on the power sector the more darkness her
citizens were plunged into.
His made the comments in Abuja on Tuesday at a workshop put together
by the House of Representatives to find solutions to perennial power
outage in the country.
“Perhaps the most important question is what happened to the N2.74
trillion spent on the sector from 1999-2015?,” Mr. Dogara said in his
opening address at the event which attracted major players in power
generation and distribution sector.
“Why is it that the more we spent on the power sector, the more
darkness we attract?” the Speaker said.
“I am confident that the array of stakeholders gathered here today
are eminently capable of dealing with these and many more related
questions and puzzles that exist and will arise in the course of
deliberations,” Mr. Dogara said.
The House organised the workshop to complement efforts of the Buhari
administration towards improving Nigeria’s poor electricity supply.
Participants will “examine extant legislations/regulatory framework
guiding the Nigerian power sector to determine if there is need for
amendments or enactment of new laws that will galvanise the sector,”
Mr. Dogara said in a statement ahead of the event.
For decades, inadequate power supply has remained one of the major
challenges hindering Nigeria’s economic growth. The country generates
less than 3,000 megawatts for its estimated 180 million people.
Mr. Dogara was first elected to the House in 2007 on the platform of
the PDP. He remained in the party until the 2015 general elections
when he crossed to the All Progressives Congress and subsequently
elected Speaker.
