Nigerians To Enjoy 24-Hour Power In 2013, Says Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday that that quite a number of cities in Nigeria will begin to enjoy uninterrupted power supply by June 2013.

Speaking during an interactive session with members of the Nigerian community in Islamabad, Pakistan, he said uninterrupted power supply would be achieved when the ongoing power projects are completed.

Jonathan said: “We have (power) projects that are going on, so before the end of the second quarter, that is almost middle of next year, most of these projects would have been commissioned, and we will be evacuating, and that time quite a number of cities will begin to have 24 hours of light. When we get to that point, you will see that small-scale enterprises will begin to make returns and that is the way we can create jobs.”

He said power generation was no longer responsible for the problems being faced in the country in the area of electricity supply, stressing that the major challenge was the transmission of the generated power.

He said power plants in the country currently have about 1,000 megawatts of electricity that could not be evacuated because of problems related to transmission.

“We have intervened robustly in the power sector, and if you call back home they will tell you the power is improving, and we have promised that we will stabilise power.

“Presently, we are generating more than what our transmission capability can evacuate.

“We have over 1000MW of power that we cannot evacuate because of the transmission infrastructure that have been weak over the years and it’s very recently that government started the intervention,” he said.

The President said the present administration has done a lot in improving all the sectors of the nation’s economy.