The federal government on Tuesday signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with a Chinese Company, Mutual Commitment Company (MCC) limited for the assembly of electric tricycles in the country.
The MoU was facilitated by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Power, a statement from the ministry said.
Present at the ceremony to represent Nigeria were the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu and the Managing Director of REA, Mr Abba Aliyu.
Speaking at the event which took place in Beijing on the eve of the opening ceremony of the African-China Co-operation Summit, Adelabu said the MoU will go down as a memorable day for Nigeria.
“I know Nigeria and China have a lot of things in common, one of which is the fact that Nigeria and China are both high population countries and with a country with high population, you have so much pressure.
“The first pressure is that of energy access and the second being job creation. So when you take steps to achieve both, it is a thing of joy. I am particularly happy that this is happening during the tenure of President Bola Tinubu, as it is in line with achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration for the country,” he said.
The minister said President Bola Tinubu has prioritised the power sector as the driver for all other critical sectors of the economy and was giving all the support to ensure the minister delivers.
He noted that energy access and expansion was the government’s major priority because nothing can be achieved without a strong, stable, functional and reliable electricity sector.
“We have relied so much on centralisation of our power sector for so long that it is not taking us anywhere”, he said, adding that almost 40 per cent of Nigeria’s population lack access to energy with its attendant consequences.
“So moving away from centralisation, we have decided to adopt the distributed power model to ensure that every Nigerian has access to energy. A lot of our population reside in the rural areas, a lot of our institutions-educational and tertiary health institutions are isolated and they are still facing epileptic power supply.
“We have also found out that the adoption of distributed energy model will expand the energy net for our rural dwellers, the rural businesses, our universities and tertiary health institutions,” he added.
According to him, as Nigeria continues to expand energy access, the country also wants to achieve transition to cleaner sources of energy that are sustainable and environment-friendly.
“This is why we have both long-term and medium -term target to achieving net zero carbon emission by year 2060 and also to enable us achieve 30 per cent of our energy generation coming from renewable energy by year 2030. So renewable energy is currently a major focus for us in the power sector,” he stressed.
He said the two MoUs would achieve the vision for the renewable energy sub segment of the power sector with focus on five items— development of local capacity , noting that along the value chain of the renewable energy sector, a lot of human and material resources that are required are still significantly dependent on import.
“Also, we will be able to produce jobs for our large youthful population that is growing everyday. Our polytechnics , technical colleges and universities are turning up graduates on a yearly basis without assurance of job placement. This will go a long way to make it happen, at the same time, we will be able to achieve our energy access expansion,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Aliyu reiterated the importance of the ceremony as it was capable of delivering on the presidential mandate of building local capacity and creating more job opportunities.
“ We will track this and ensure the delivery of the commitment within the tenure of the present administration. We will also track the economic factor that this initiative will drive, the level of GDP contribution, the employment opportunities provided and the socio-economic activities that will crystallise,” he said.
Vice Chairman of MCC, Yan Zhezhu who spoke through an interpreter said: “We are not new to Nigeria having started in Oyo State a long time ago. Presently, we have ongoing projects in Maiduguri and Kaduna and we appreciate the cooperation we have so far received. Our projects have seen us working with States and the Federal Government in Nigeria and we are committed to do more”.
Meanwhile, the minister has said that the national grid on Monday hit a record high of 5,313 megawatts in the last three years.
On the heels of this, the minister called on the Distribution Companies (Discos) to make use of the opportunity to take more energy in order to prevent grid collapse as frequency drops.
Emmanuel Addeh
Follow us on:
