BY HECTOR IGBIKIOWUBO, CLARA NWACHUKWU & YEMIE ADEOYE

ABUJA—  power outage at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, cut short the proceedings of the opening ceremony by President Goodluck Jonathan, of Nigeria’s biggest industry annual exhibitions yesterday.

The power outage, which occurred twice during the proceedings, forced participants  to immediately leave the conference hall, thereby breaching protocol, as Mr President, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, was still seated, waiting to declare the conference open.

Ironically, the Minister of State for Power, Nuhu Way, and the Chairman, Presidential Taskforce on Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, were also seated to the embarrassment of all present.

Power troubles began half way into the programme, when the lights went out briefly the first time, and it was dismissed casually by the Master of Ceremony, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, who jokingly said, “This is a testimony that the power sector needs the oil and gas industry assistance, the minister is here to ask for gas to power the thermal stations and we are going to give him more gas.”

However, at the second outage, it became obvious that the situation could no longer be dismissed casually, as after several minutes of waiting, the lights could not come back, thereby, underscoring the crisis situation in Nigeria’s power sector, which former president, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, constantly toyed with the idea of declaring an emergency situation in the power sector, but could not get round to it until his death last year.

Incidentally, the Chairman of the UK-based, CWC Associates, organisers of the event, Dr. Alierro Parra, in his welcome address, had noted that the Jonathan’s administration had achieved two major milestones since assuming office, one of which is the on-going reforms of the power sector, through the enunciation of the Power Sector roadmap to tackle the seemingly endemic challenges in the powers sector. He said the other milestone is the signing of the Nigerian Content Development Act 2010, saying that these policies “will have a great impact on the Nigerian economy.”

In his keynote address, President Jonathan, said the major thrust of his economic policy was to achieve a greater linkage between the oil and gas industry, which contributed over 90 percent of the national revenue, but only about 30 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, with other sectors of the economy, particularly power, to fast-track the national vision of Nigeria becoming one of the 20, biggest economies by Year 2020, under the Vision 20: 2020.

According to him, Vision 20:2020 requires government to utilize oil and gas revenues in a more sustainable manner and also use oil revenues to develop other sectors of the economy.”

He said this is why his administration had put in place the enabling environment to attract private investments in the power sector and other major downstream infrastructures, adding that such investments “requires effective collaboration between the public and private sectors.”

The president also gave the assurance that the contentious Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, would be passed before the expiration of this tenure, adding that when passed into law, the bill will “ensure a levl field for all stakeholders and transparency … by providing a stable competitive framework for the industry.”