“Let us Invest In Our Power Sector” – Elumelu Urges

Tony Elumelu, the serial entrepreneur has made a strong appeal for significant investment in the power sector.

Elumelu is a major player in the sector with Transcorp Group, the parent company for Transcorp Power, a leading producer of Electricity in Nigeria.

“Let us create regulatory structures that reward success, that deliver to our people, our schools, our hospitals, and our industries, the sustainable, robust power supply that our country so urgently needs” Elumelu urged leaders of thoughts at the recent annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association where he was a speaker along with President Bola Tinubu.

“Is it not ironic that a country with abundant gas resources cannot optimally operate its power plants due to lack of gas!” the chairman of Transcorp Group rhetorically asked the gathering at the Velodrome, Chief MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja venue of the event that was held on Sunday, August 27, 2023.

The passionate advocate of a better Nigeria – and Africa – went on to provide a thought-provoking insight into the need for better investment in the power sector.

“I have seen, the beginnings of what we can do. Let me give you an example:the TransAfam Power Plant that belongs to Transcorp Group has an installed capacity of 1000 megawatts. The Federal Government of Nigeria made significant investment to acquire 240 megawatts fast power turbines from General Electric (GE).

For context, 240 megawatts of electricity can power about one million homes in Nigeria.

Yet GE has threatened to pull out of the project, because our nation – with some of the largest gas reserves globally, could not provide 65mm scuffs of gas needed for the comprehensive testing of the installed fast power plant.” Elumelu who is also the chairman of global bank, UBA (United Bank for Africa).

The King of commerce who is very familiar with the terrain asserted that Nigeria has idle gas fields and private capital to make the “needed investments for gas production”.

He urged a change from the “short-sighted regulatory regime and self-serving polices” that have made Nigeria unable to “produce gas to power our economy and 21st Century industrialisation.”

Elumelu gave the charge as part of his address on Nation-Building which labelled a collective responsibility.

Investment in the Power Sector is one of the infrastructures the founder of leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) advocated at the NBA conference that was themed ” Getting it Right: Charting the Course for Nigeria’s Nation-Building”.

Other infrastructure he identified include Investment in youth by providing means for them to succeed in Nigeria, Providing opportunities for women to excel for stronger impacts on family and society, putting in place a more vibrant -all-touching-power-sector, particularly gas production, investment in security to attain peace and stability for shared prosperity including put in place a more efficient social infrastructure like – civil society, courts of law and administration of justice and the building of a stronger connection with the brand Nigeria to make it a thing of pride home and abroad across all levels.