The Peoples Alternative Political Movement (TPAP-M), a labour group, says poor performance of power companies necessitated its call for reversal of the power sector privatisation and re-nationalisation of the sector.
Prof. Omotoye Olorode, Head of the Secretariat Collective of TPAP-M, made this known at a news conference and lecture to mark 10 years of Occupy Nigeria in Abuja on Saturday.
Mr Jaye Gaskiya, a member of the TPAP-M Secretariat, who delivered the speech co-signed by him and the chairman, said returning the sector to the public sector would be in public interest.
According to him, it is advisable to return power to the public sector because leaving it in the hands of DISCOs and GENCOs would bring no significant improvement in power generation and transmission.
He added that it was better to re-nationalise the sector by “bringing it under the control and management of key stakeholders, including workers, and electricity consumers than leaving it in the hands of private companies”.
He also harped on metering system, rise in the price of cooking gas and electricity tariff, adding that rising energy costs and prices were contributors to the poor condition of living and insecurity in Nigeria.
“We reject the continued practice of estimated billing, whereby as of January 2022, only 41 per cent of electricity consumers supplied by the national grid are metered.
“The estimated billing system has shown to be arbitrary, exploitative of citizens and fraught with corruption and fraudulent practices.
“We therefore demand a programme and investment plan that will ensure the metering of all electricity consumers within the next 12 months.
“Heads must roll for failure to achieve past targets, while people must be held accountable for failure to meet this new target,” he said.
On the petroleum sector, Olorode also called for recovery of misappropriated public funds put into petroleum and power sectors aimed to improve domestic refining capacity and domestic production of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), among others.
“We demand that the recovered funds should be utilised to build new public refineries, improve domestic LPG production, and improve service delivery in the renationalised power sector.
“We demand the publication of different categories of electricity tariff rates as at September 2020, as well as the rates for the same different categories of January 2022.
“This is for citizens to make a determination as to whether the tariffs have been or are being surreptitiously and marginally increased without public knowledge.
“We demand an immediate and comprehensive update report on the implementation of the transition to CNG scheme, and a public accounting on the expenses made from the N250 billion allocated for the scheme,” he said.
Olorode called on all Nigerians to reject any political party and candidates who do not have any practical, fundable, realisable and believable programme to resolve the energy crisis.
The group threatened to protest rise in price of cooking gas, electricity tariff and pump price of petrol as well as other factors making life unbearable for Nigerians.
