Insecurity : Improving Electricity Supply In Barracks, Military Formation Top Priority - Minister

Honourable Minister of State, Power, Goddy Jedy Agba, (L) addressing Major General Sanusi Dahiru, Commander, Army Headquarters Garrison and other Senior Officers during a visit to the Garrison Headquarters in Abuja earlier today 

Amidst growing security challenges facing the country, the federal government has assured the military that it'll double its efforts to ensure stable and sustainable electricity supply across military barracks and formations in the country.

The Honourable Minister of State, Power, Goddy Jedy Agba, OFR, gave the assurances on Friday during a visit to the Army Headquarters Garrison in Mogadishu Cantonment, Abuja.

Jedy-Agba who said electricity has a key role to play in the fight against insecurity, noted that as the government is working to improve the general welfare of men and officers of the military and other security agencies, special attention will be given to the electricity challenges in barracks.

He said that "I'm happy to be here because from the introduction, I've heard names that reflect our cultural and ethnic diversity; every part of this country is represented here, so we can talk to ourselves as Nigerians.

My visit is at the instant of the Commander. I was here before to see for myself, the elecltricy challenges in this barracks. When I came, I dentify some issues like the high electricity rate even when power supply was a major challenge. To solve that problem, we dropped the barracks from grade "A" where electricity rate is high to the level you are now where you can guarantee at least, a minimum of four hours electricity a day at a low cost.

I understand that just four hours is not enough but coming from where we were, you can agree with me that this is an improvement. Also note that, that's the minimum per day but we're working to ensure it's improve to about 18-24 hours per day. We can't underestimate the importance of electricity in the fight against the criminal elements trying to destabilize our country. So, as a government, we're working to double our efforts to ensure better electricity supply in the barracks and other security formations".

The Minister added that, "the world is moving away from thermal and carbon emissions and Nigeria don't want to be left behind. This is why the President Muhammadu Buhari's administration is investing heavily is renewable energy. And we're working on deploying renewable energy solutions to our military barracks to address personnel electricity needs".

Explaining the challenges facing the power sector, the Minister noted that "power infrastructure has decayed so much in Nigeria that it's today affecting generation and distribution. This is the area we're tackling because no matter the investment in the sector, if there are no viable infrastructures, no reasonable improvement can be achieved".

On the efforts of government to tackle the issue of estimated billing, he said that "the President has given us marching orders to meter six million homes before the end of the year. We've started and it's ongoing. Part of the programme is to also encourage and support investors to open metre production factories in the country to reduce our over reliance on imported ones. This too, I can tell you, we're making progress and hoping that in the next phase of the programme which will commence next year, we'll begin to deploy made-in-Nigeria metres".

Responding, the Garrison Commander, Major General Sanusi Dahiru applauded the Minister and the government for promptly addressing the elecltricy challenges in the barracks.

Dahiru said that "when I first arrived here, the two issues that stroke my mind first were water and electricity. For water, we were able to handle it almost immediately but electricity, it took a long time. When I finally got across to the Honourable Minister who has become much more of a brother than friend, he quickly responded. He has given us unlimited access to him and I'm very grateful that the elecltricy issue is now better than when we came".

He added that "during our discussion in the office, he promised to prioritize improving power supply in our barracks. For us, once we're able to resolve the billing issue which he's working on, things will improve again. We appeal to him not to be tired of us because we're going to come to him again to ask for more".