Nigeria’s leading survey and polling firm, NOIPolls Ltd, says that its new aggregated power poll results released for 2018 showed that power supply still remains inadequate to Nigerian households.The report released on Tuesday in Abuja by NOIPolls noted that while the power sector experienced marginal improvement in 2018 (40 percent) compared with previous two years – 2017 (37 percent) and 2016 (36 percent), an assessment of power supply in 2018 revealed that Nigerian households witnessed the highest improvement in the third quarter of 2018.
It added that 43 percent of the respondents surveyed admitted that there was improvement in power supply, while more than half of the respondents reported that they saw no improvement.
According to the report, the monthly analysis showed that the highest improvement in power supply was recorded in the month of August 2018 with 46 percent confirming they experienced improvement.
It noted that the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, stated that the country’s power generation was at its peak of 7,000 megawatts (MW) in August 2018, but that “peak of 7,000mw is still grossly inadequate considering the country’s population and the role of electricity in the development of the nation’s economy”.
“Similarly, the average cumulative hours of power supply to Nigerian of households in the third quarter of 2018 was highest at an average of 9.8 hours. Year on year analysis showed that the average cumulative hours of power supply was slightly higher in 2017 than in 2018 despite an increase in generation.
“Also, the month of August 2018 recorded the highest average daily cumulative hours of power supply to Nigerian households with 10.3 hours.
“This figure is still a far cry when compared to the 24 hours (international standard) of daily power supply mostly obtained in other countries,” the report said
Quoting the Spectator Index report on power supply, it said that Nigeria was ranked the second worst country in the world.
Given the current state of power supply in Nigeria, it urged the Federal Government and the other stakeholders in the power sector to invest in key infrastructures.
“For instance, gas pipelines, equipment used in the distribution, generation and transmission of electricity, and other facilities as well as bringing in more investors into the industry to provide the funds needed to move the sector forward,” it added.
Source: Journal DU Cameroun
