Prof. Eli Jidere Bala is the Director General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria. In this interview, he discussed with KINGSLEY JEREMIAH critical issues in the energy sector in Nigeria.
We are presently in a transition, the world has not blocked the use of fossil fuel, so there’s demand. Fortunately, we have the resources still being exploited. The resources we are getting from export of oil and natural gas should be invested to develop sustainable energy resources and renewables.
With the national energy policy on ground, we needed to have the national energy master plan on how we could implement these policies. We started developing this master plan with the aid of IRENA experts. We did a draft, but not until 2022 that the federal executive council approved the national energy master plan. We have been having a sub-secretarial plan of national energy until last year 2022 that we got it approved.
The development in the energy sector should be private-sector driven, this provides the political will and legal framework. We can see that the petroleum industry has driven the development in that sub-sector towards the private sector. In the electricity sector too, we have had a reform since 2005; they are private-sector driven. This provides not only the political way, it’s also the legal framework.
This takes time because in Africa we don’t have the capacity for technology, there is a need for us to ensure that even as we transit, the industrial benefits come to us. When our local products are manufactured outside Nigeria, the benefits do not come to us, what we’re doing becomes just a market and it is not good for our industrialization.
Loans Loans Latest News, Loans Loans Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: GuardianNigeria - 🏆 1. / 94 Read more »