Coalition Seeks Exit Of Minister, TCN Boss Over Frequent Grid Collapse

Citing intermittent and continuous collapse of the national grid, a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack the minister of power, Chief Adelabu Adebayo and the managing director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz.
It said the national embarrassment from the grid collapse and power-related issues, which can easily be addressed showed that the two officials are incompetent.

The CSOs recalled that within a quarter of a year, Nigeria had experienced six incidents of national grid collapse with an agonising reality of the poorest and most epileptic power supply in many years with attendant impact on businesses and the economy at large.

In a press release made available to journalists in Abuja yesterday by the national coordinator of Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Innovative, Comrade Danesi Momoh and Comrade Igwe Ude-Umanta, who doubles as the executive director, Guardians Of Democracy and Development Initiative (GODDI) and coordinator for Coalition of Civil Society Groups on National Stability, the group maintained that the duo of Adebayo and Sule had nothing to offer Nigerians and should be booted out.

They said, “Nigerians know that the Ministry of Power, under Chief Adebayo Adelabu is ‘powerless’ and has no value addition either to Nigerians in general or the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in particular. The level of cluelessness and compromise within the ministry and the Transmission Company of Nigeria is nauseating and embarrassing as our national electricity grid keeps collapsing like a pack of cards.

“The duo have no business remaining in the critical offices they occupy. They should take the honourable path (if there is still a modicum of honour left in them) and resign, or be faced with a civil society mass action because enough is enough. This we shall pursue to a logical conclusion and ensure they’re replaced and prosecuted,” Momoh said.

The coalition cited a list of verifiable shortcomings involving the two officials, including a demonstrable lack of direction and professional competence in leading the sensitive power sector.
According to the coalition, their continuous stay in office will jeopardise the Renewed Hope Agenda and the economic recovery plan of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The group continued, “Just recently, the Generating Companies (GenCos) revealed that the TCN has been unable to transmit the generated power, being the core root of the electricity supply nightmare in Nigeria. Since the assumption of office of Engr. Abdulaziz of TCN, he has been unable to chart a clear power transmission path for the country. Nothing holds the slightest promise of hope in TCN towards ending our embarrassing power problems. There must therefore, be a deliberate sanitary exercise in the power sector we will take the laws into our hands and help Mr. President to clean this mess”, the statement added.

The coalition gave a timeline of activities it intends to launch with other civil society organisations towards pursuing just and appropriate actions against the two officials who, it said, had failed to justify the confidence reposed in them by the president.