‘It will never work’ – Rufai Oseni blasts state electricity law

Arise News anchor, Rufai Oseni has reacted to the law allowing various states to generate their electricity, saying it is not going to be possible.

Speaking during Arise Television’s Morning Show on Monday, Rufai said while the idea looks good on paper, the states do not have the capacity, funding and infrastructure to generate and distribute power.

According to him, electricity is not something that can be proclaimed by law, stressing that power needs massive funding, gas supply, generation plants, transmission infrastructure and a distribution network, which most states do not have.

“This law making various states own their electricity is not going to be possible. It will never work. Let’s be sincere to ourselves.

“How many states can generate power? Where is the gas? Where is the grid? Where is the money?” Rufai said.

He argued that even the Federal Government that has been in the power sector for over 40 years is still struggling to generate just 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts for over 200 million Nigerians, with constant grid collapse.

The broadcaster said many states cannot even pay workers’ salaries and are still depending on the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, allocation, questioning where they would get billions of dollars to build power plants and transmission lines.

He added that many of the Distribution Companies, DisCos, are already failing and cannot distribute what the Federal Government is generating, so giving power to states will create 36 new problems.

Rufai called on the Federal Government to stop deceiving Nigerians with laws that cannot work and instead fix the national grid, fix gas supply to GenCos and fix transmission.

“If we cannot give Nigerians 24-hour electricity from one centre, how do you want to break it into 36 centres? It will never work,” he concluded.