The Managing Director and CEO of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Sule Abdulaziz stated that the cost of power in Nigeria is very reasonable.
Abdulaziz made the statement during an interview on Channel TV’s Politics Tonight program on Sunday.
He expressed confidence that Nigeria will have a reliable electricity supply within five years. He emphasized that system collapses do not always arise from the TCN.
Abdulaziz also explained the difference between the TCN and the now-defunct National Electric Power Authority. The TCN CEO emphasized infrastructural challenges, pointing out that much of the equipment is old.
“I am telling you we can get a consistent power supply in less than five years. The new minister is looking at the problems, he is not doing cosmetic showdowns,” he said.
“If there is a system collapse, it doesn’t mean all the problems are from TCN, it can be from generation, it can be from transmission it can be from distribution. Some of these can also come from disaster. You cannot say it is the fault of the TCN just like that. TCN is in charge of managing the grid,” he said.
“People have to understand the difference between the TCN and Nepa. When we were Nepa, we were the ones doing the generation, transmission, distribution and marketing.
But now we are only doing one leg which is transmission. But there could be issues in all other sectors which are the generation and the distribution. But people only know Nepa and they think TCN is NEPA and they put the blame on TCN,” he stated.
“Most of the equipment we use is over 50 years old,” he lamented.