The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb Maitama Tuggar, has assured Nigerians that there will be significant improvement in electricity supply by the first half of 2024.
Tuggar gave this assurance in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday.
He said, “In the coming year, by the first half of next year (2024), there will be a remarkable improvement in the electricity supply in Nigeria.”
The minister said electricity supply would improve with the completion of the ongoing AKK project, the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano project.
He added that the setbacks experienced in the past would be managed by President Bola Tinubu administration.
Tuggar said the Siemens gas deal between Nigeria and Germany will be continued by the President Tinubu administration.
The minister, who is part of the President’s team at the G20 Compact with Africa Economic Conference in Germany, said the Siemens deal is “fully back”.
According to Tuggar, the gas deal between Nigeria and Germany is a win-win.
He said, “The fact that we are exporting gas to Germany or we intend to do that does not mean that we are depriving Nigeria’s domestic gas needs;
“… that will be fulfilled as well, but you also need the revenue that would accrue from such exports to invest further in taking electricity and gas to other parts of Nigeria. So, it’s all interconnected, and one does not stop the other from happening.”
Recall that former President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 promised to expand Nigeria’s electricity capacity, which is currently at 4,000 megawatts, to 25,000 MW by 2025 when he inked a deal with Siemens Energy in Germany under the Presidential Power Initiative, but the project has not been actualized.
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