Electricity is not a social commodity- Audrey Joe- Ezigbo

Following the plan by the federal government to provide free electricity to Nigerians which was later debunked by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Co-founder of Falcon Cooperation limited has said electricity supply could be a social commodity if the right and adequate infrastructure had been put in place.

Mrs. Audrey Joe- Ezigbo made this known on Tuesday during “money line” on African Independent Television AIT monitored by Nigerian NewsDirect.

Reacting to weather government could provide free electricity for Nigerians, she said a ramp attention needs to be given to the statement made by Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Generating Companies, and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which stated that free electricity could be supplied if paid for, adding that money has to flow across the value chain.

She said “we talk about palliative measures by providing free electricity for Nigerians but it should be noted that DISCOS and GENCOS also need to survive. They need the liquidity to be able to sustain, money needs to be made available to deal with the entire value chain.

Besides, the narrative of electricity been a social commodity in Nigeria would have worked if we had done the right thing in the area of deploying infrastructure across the country.”

“At this point, we have 4300 generating capacity in the country of 200 million people, we need to know where the power is going to, we need to do analysis of the percentage of population that have access to power across the country and once it discovered also important to increase infrastructure in such places or state because there are so many elements that will come into place but the underline reality is that they will call for investment.

“You dont expect investors to come in and you are telling them from the beginning that they are not going to make profit because it a social commodity and that is why Nigeria is still in this same position for long.

“The unfortunate thing because of the years we have lived in this situation, there will be a period of hin that everybody will feel collectively so that so that we have infrastructure in place expand the electricity generation across the country.”

Also reacting to the challenges of gas market in Nigeria, Ezigbo said Nigeria has focused more on associated gas which is got from oil exploration and production process adding that when things happen in the oil sector, there is an immediate impact on gas.

She said there a landscape needs to be created for gas such that people are deliberately exploring non associated gas and commercializing it adding that people in the gas sector need to have a discussion on how they can be encouraged even in the face of the present challenges.

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