BY KUNLE KALEJAYE & EDIRI EJOR

MINISTER of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, has reiterated government’s effort at revolutionizing the nation’s industrial sector through advancing the power sector.

The minister who spoke yesterday in Lagos at a power summit with the theme ‘Maintaining momentum in Nigeria’s Power sector’ said that before the coming of the present administration the industrial sector was almost dead even while admitting that there are still challenges.

He said “In 1996, there were about 47 industries in the industrial cluster in Nnewi but by 2013 they have come down to only six industries, as the others died because of power problems. One of these industries was spending a minimum of one tanker load of diesel, which is about 33,000 litres every day to power its plant, and when you multiply this, it translates into billions of naira just to power the industries using diesel.

“So these are the problems we had in the past and which we are still grappling with today. But in all these problems, there is a huge opportunity; that spans across the economic horizon in Nigeria. We can say that 50 percent of the 170 million people are veritable consumers waiting for products to consume and one way to get this product available to them is massive availability of power supply that will drive industry, manufacturing firms, small and medium scale enterprises.”