Discos Apologise to Nigerians for Poor Power Supply

By Adedapo Adesanya

The chief executive of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Mr Sunday Oduntan, has apologised to Nigerians over the recent decline in electricity supply across the country.

Mr Oduntan tendered the apology on Monday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, acknowledging the difficulties Nigerians have faced in accessing electricity in recent weeks.

“I’d like to first of all start by apologising to Nigerians. An apology is needed; it is essential because Nigerians have been taken through this problem over the past few weeks,” he said.

He also criticised the renewed blame game among operators in the electricity sector, warning that it could worsen efforts to address the country’s persistent power supply challenges.

Over the weekend, operators including the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited all clarified that the outage wasn’t of their doing.

Mr Oduntan recalled that similar disagreements among distribution companies, transmission operators, generation companies and gas suppliers characterised the sector between 2016 and 2019, with stakeholders blaming one another for poor electricity supply.

He said the industry appeared to be returning to that pattern, urging stakeholders to focus on identifying and resolving the underlying problems.

“Our major problem is that we have started that very wrong route that we went through between 2016 and 2019. What is that? Blame game,” he said.

The ANED chief questioned the recent statements by the NISO and the NNPC over the factors responsible for the electricity shortages, noting that NISO attributed the supply challenges partly to low water levels and inadequate gas supply, while the NNPC subsequently issued a statement indicating that gas was available.

However, Mr Oduntan questioned the completeness of the NNPC’s explanation, saying the company needed to clarify whether outstanding payments were affecting gas supply to power generation companies.

“From the NNPC statement, it is very clear that they came to tell us half-truths. What I would have expected NNPC to do is to go ahead and tell us whether there are payment issues. We need to know whether gas was paid for and delivered, who did, who didn’t,” he said.

He called on the Minister of Power, Mr Joseph Tegbe, to take the lead in resolving the disagreements by bringing relevant stakeholders together to establish the actual causes of the electricity supply challenges.

Mr Oduntan said coordinated leadership was necessary to end the exchange of accusations among gas suppliers, the NNPC, the Transmission Company of Nigeria and NISO.

“This back-and-forth blame game among gas suppliers, NNPC and, of course, TCN or NISO, I think the Minister of Power needs to take charge. There is a need for this leadership because, at the end of the day, they need to call them together,” he said.