By Ebele ORAKPO
The Vice-President (Africa) of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), and a deputy director in the Ministry of Water Resources, Engr. Imo Ekpo, has commended the Federal Government on its decision to tackle Nigeria’s power problem headlong, advising, however, that all available sources of power must be explored if success must be achieved.

Speaking with Vanguard in Abuja recently, Ekpo said: “Immediately Nigeria decided to have mobile phones, everybody, including the market woman selling water, has access to cell phones. So I am happy that today, the choice has been made to face the issue of power squarely because every other thing hinges on power availability.”

Ekpo who is the first Nigerian to be elected vice_president of the international body since the country joined the commission in 1973, noted that Nigeria has a number of large rivers that have enough water flow from which power can be generated.

“We have three major international rivers: Niger, Benue and Cross River and besides these, there are a number of big tributaries that can also serve as points for hydropower development.

Presently, we are pushing for the construction of the Mambilla Dam in Taraba State and also the construction of Zungeru dam. We also have a number of other sites that have been identified by the federal ministries of  Power and Water Resources, Energy Commission of Nigeria, and state governments.

They may not necessarily be 2,600mw like Mambilla, 500, 400, even 10 MW is something because all we want to do is to make Nigeria have enough power to meet her energy needs and it is not something that would be done by government alone, but also the private sector.

And I am happy for what the government is doing in terms of trying to create an environment conducive for international bodies, agencies and investors who would come with their own money to develop the country.”

Continuing, he said: “We barely have up to 4,000 MW today and we are looking at a population of 140 million people and by the time you see the ratio between the population and the power availability, you are talking of 0.04kw per person whereas in industrialized nations, we are talking about over 2, 3, 4 kilowatts.  Today, it is only South Africa and Egypt that have something close to that. With a population of 140 million people, we need at least 40,000 MW and what that means is that all sources of energy _ thermal, hydro, solar, wind, biomass, or whatever _ should be developed so that we can also reduce the load on the national grid.”

Describing hydropower as the most significant renewable energy source and the only source that is in some measure competitive with fossil fuels, Ekpo stated that hydropower uses the earth’s water cycle to generate electricity because movement of water as it flows downstream creates kinetic energy that can be converted into electricity.

“It is a very popular source of power in the world than any other source because it is clean, cheap, and renewable as opposed to thermal plants which emit green house gases like carbon dioxide and other carbon related gases and in line with the Kyoto Protocol of 2000, most countries are being discouraged from generating electricity from thermal plants in order to enhance the lives of people and animals.

That is not to say that a country that does not have hydro will not have source of power. The bulk of power generated in Egypt is from thermal.

The Aswan Dam which is the major dam on the River Nile, has very minimal power. Some other countries go in for coal, it is also not as friendly but there is nothing one can do because part of the source of power in South Africa is from coal so we take advantage of the environment that we find ourselves in. In a particular environment where you can have power from coal, go for it but also have mitigation measures to control whatever pollution might come out of that source of power.”

Speaking on the benefits Nigeria stands to gain as a member of ICOLD, Ekpo noted that Nigeria has benefitted from the capacity building scheme of the commission. “In the last three years, about 10 Nigerians have been trained in Turkey in the art of designing and construction of dams and we are still opening other doors for capacity building.

Again, because only 7% of the potentials of hydropower in Africa has been developed and Nigeria is even less than 4% and yet, we don’t have enough power supply, the World Declaration for Hydropower Construction in Africa was signed in November 2008 for the construction of hydropower projects.

We also get manuals and journals because we need them to be able to know how dams are being designed. The quarterly journals are always available for us to use and also give not only to schools, but also to contractors and consultants in the sector.”

The energy to be generated from the Mambilla dam is 2,600mw which is relatively large compared to what we get from Shiroro, Kainji and Jebba which is less than 2,000mw.