Nasir Giwa, general manager, Power and Gas, Siemens Limited, speaks with Anayo Ezugwu, staff writer, Realnews, on the challenges facing the power sector in Nigeria and contributions of Siemens to help the country overcome them

 Realnews: What is your impression of the Nigeria electricity system?

Giwa: Currently, in Nigeria we are not where we should be. And I must commend the honourable minister of power, works and housing. I know he is working so hard to change things but it’s so unfortunate that things are not moving as fast as we want it to move because of the very deplorable state the present government meant the power situation. I must also commend the Acting President. I know the situation is so close to his heart, I’m saying this because we met him recently and I know all he is trying to do about improving power.

So the power situation in Nigeria today is not where it should be. There is a lot to be done. Let me use this opportunity to assure the Nigerian government that we at Siemens with the support of our own government we are with Nigeria. We share the pain with Nigeria and we really want to work with Nigeria to move forward the present state of our power situation. This is not what Nigerians should be having we deserve better than this and we are fully ready to work with Nigeria.

Realnews: Considering the present situation of the sector, what do you think is the way forward?

Giwa: The way forward is for us to take the bull by the horn. We really need to take bold steps and I really mean it. When I said bold steps I’m citing the example of Egypt and that is the type of steps we should be taking. All this ad-hoc solutions – 50 megawatts in a particular place, 100 megawatts in another place will not really solve our problem. Let’s look at our problem holistically, let’s engage with key players like Siemens. We have gotten the experience from our work in Egypt. We can provide solution right from the feedstock to the generation itself, to transmission, to distribution and to the collections. We have the solutions for all these. Let’s just take the bull by the horn. Seat with us in a room, we already have a working example in other African countries. I think we need the will to do it.

Realnews: What is your impression of the power recovery plan?

Giwa: That’s excellent. It is a good step in the right direction. I must commend the minister and his team for putting that forward and we must thank government for supporting it.

Realnews: Presently, what is Siemens doing in terms of helping Nigeria to solve its electricity challenges?

Giwa: Of course, we are working with the government. The Azura project in Edo State and that is the only private sector led power plant in Nigeria in the last 20 year. The Azura-Edo 450 megawatts project is going to be ready ahead of schedule. This is Siemens for you. All the projects we have handled for the Nigerian grid they were done on target and on time. So the same way the Azura is even going to happen ahead of time. So that is what we are working on now to generate 450 megawatts. You won’t believe that it is the only major gas power plant in the last 20 years in Nigeria.

Realnews: It is like our problem in the power sector is not just in the generation and distribution. There are other bottlenecks in the system. What do you think the government should do differently?

Giwa: All these problems simply show that the situation was very bad before the privatisation. And it is not very easy to say because we have privatised we will just wish away the problems. Government still need to intervene. Intervening means government still need to participate in facilitating, promoting and encouraging new projects. When I say new projects, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about new power plants but freeing up some of the ongoing projects that are stagnant, (the Mambilla project) and so many other projects that can actually improve our power.

There are a lot of developers who have reached final stage of finalising their projects. All these need to be encouraged to close on time. The government still need to intervene particularly now that more private investors are interested and coming in. They only need to be encouraged by removing most of these bottlenecks and allow them to close their projects on time. We do not want a situation whereby it takes five years to close a project. That is not going to help a country like Nigeria that dearly needs the projects.

Realnews: Don’t you think that investors should actually look at other sources of power like wind, solar?

Giwa: Yes, when we are talking about power in Siemens we are not just talking about gas based. We have solution for wind. For instance, we are working with a developer for a major solar power project in Nigeria. Even though we don’t produce the solar panels but we have other solutions and products to go about a complete solar project. So for the wind we have the solution. In Nigeria, for instance, in different regions there can be different solutions.

—  Jun 19, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT