Former Vice President of Nigeria and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that President Bola Tinubu has adopted a 21-year-old power sector proposal he introduced to tackle Nigeria’s electricity challenges.
The claim was made in a statement issued on Sunday by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu.
Atiku said the Tinubu administration has now embraced a policy he first proposed more than two decades ago, following comments by the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, that Nigeria can no longer rely solely on large, centralised power plants.
According to Atiku, the minister’s remarks amount to a delayed endorsement of the decentralised electricity generation model he has long advocated.
“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago.
A government that thinks before it acts would have fixed the system before asking citizens to pay more. Unfortunately, this administration has done the exact opposite, raising tariffs first and only now beginning to think about the reforms required to justify those increases.”
He recalled that while serving as Vice President under President Olusegun Obasanjo, he repeatedly urged the government to decentralise electricity generation by making use of Nigeria’s hydroelectric dams, solar, gas, and other energy resources.
“This has been my position for over two decades,” he stated.
