Leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 General Elections, Adewole Adebayo, has faulted the planned hike in electricity tariff, accusing the Federal Government of playing politics with the sector.
He, therefore, called for the de-politicisation and increased investment in the sector.
In a statement yesterday, Adebayo stated that the government was essentially trying to dwell more on creating an electricity market by seeking to follow examples of countries like Chile and other places, where electricity is not seen from the strategic national development point of view.
He noted that the government was no longer looking at electricity from the social service point of view, but creating a market for products, adding that the only problem in that approach was that the government was trying to create a perfect market.
He added: “So, it will be good for the government to forget the idea of creating a perfect market. They should try as much as possible to make supply available and it is an engineering question.
“There is no amount of change of language that can run away from the fact that people will know when there is electricity. Remember how we used to talk about generating 5,000 megawatts, now they have changed it. So, it is just a mathematical language. At the end of the day, people will know whether electricity is available, stable and affordable, and it requires a lot of investments and some of the investments have lead time.
“The problem with politics is that the President has only four years and if you have an engineering project that requires 16 years of continuous investment, there is no need to lie to the people that you are going to fix it in four years.”
He added: “You will see that many people have fallen by the wayside. Bola Ige came and said that in six months, there will be electricity. If you listened to Babatunde Fashola, by now we should be swimming in electrical current. I believe that in his house now, he is probably running on a generator.”
He also called on the government to work on the excessive bureaucracy in the sector.
Stressing the need for increased and right investment in the sector, he urged the National Council of State and National Economic Council to join hands with the government to deal with the issue.
