Labour Charges President-elect On Electricity, Job Creation

The leadership of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association(FOBTOB) has called on the incoming administration to handle the power generation as was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari beyond mere media broadcast.

The leadership of the union, while chatting with selected newsmen in Lagos, cited many unfulfilled promises by the outgoing regime as reason for his call.

Identifying the signing of the law by PMB as a right step in the right direction, Oyibo, however, called on president-elect Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to ensure that power generation is improved upon to create competition, break the monopoly in the sector and create more jobs.

According to Oyibo, interested states or corporate bodies that have the interest in power generation should embark on the network base since the existing network is almost obsolete due to overuse.

Noting that the move would inarguably create more direct and indirect jobs, the FOBTOB leader stressed that many youths with hidden and yet untapped useful skills would be self-engaged when there is constant electricity.

He noted that, because distribution infrastructures are already owned by private investors (by virtue of the privatization that happened in 2013), a lot of collaboration and synergy should happen between current investors which should be tailored toward  improving on the existing network infrastructure.

Still commenting on Buhari’s move to liberalise the power sector, Oyibo noted that breaking the monopoly of the power sector is long overdue.

On his own part, a reliable anonymous source within Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), while expressing his reservation over the development, noted that, for it to materialise and become reality, and though the Constitution has given the States powers to legislate on the generation, transmission and distribution of energy within areas covered by the national grid, this power is not automatic. 

States will have to domesticate this law within their states via their state house of assembly, he stressed. 

A state, he stressed, can also choose to maintain the status quo and not go into the electricity market. 

“Currently, we have NERC who is the body that regulates the electricity market. Any person or company can generate electricity and give it to an offtaker but MUST get a written consent and  license from NERC if that company or person is supplying power exceeding 1MW. It is called Captive Power Generation. However, whether the states will maintain this regulation or not is unknown. Lots of reconciliations and collaboration need to happen between the Federal and State,” he pointed out.