The African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, on Thursday knocked his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi for expressing surprise at the incessant collapse of the country’s national grid.
Nigeria’s power grid collapsed again on Wednesday, as it crashed from the 3,921.8 megawatts generated at 6am to as low as 50MW around 12.23pm, causing a widespread blackout across the country.
Industry figures obtained from the Federal Ministry of Power in Abuja showed that power generation on the grid had hit a peak of 4,091.6MW on Tuesday.
But this dropped to 3,921.8MW on Wednesday morning, before crashing to about 50MW, a development that led to the eventual collapse of the national electricity grid.
Wednesday's collapse of the national grid was the sixth time the country would experience such an occurrence this year.
However, Obi, whose tweet on Thursday, about the issue came over 24 hours late, blamed the frequent collapse of the national grid on the government.
“Reports that the national power grid has collapsed for the 6th time in 7 months is alarming. Once again, many Nigerians have been left grope around in darkness without electricity,” he had tweeted.
“Such negative parameters are not only benchmarks for governance failure but a compelling catalyst for leadership change.
“Moreover, in a nation where many go the bed hungry, and national bakers going on strike is indicative of the high-stress level in both the productive realm of our economy and quality of life.”
But reacting to Obi’s post, Sowore asked him to stop pretending as he was once an adviser to a sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan who led the country for about six years.
He said, “What a puerile response?
@PeterObi served as an adviser to @GEJonathan @OfficialPDPNig
govt & the electricity situation didn’t improve, recently you traveled to Egypt to “learn” how their electricity works. Didn’t you learn anything? Why pretending that you just found out now?”
Sowore on Wednesday also berated a former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar over his reaction to the National Grid collapse.
Atiku on Wednesday after it was announced that the National Grid had collapsed for the 6th time posted on his verified Twitter page, his displeasure over the repeated collapse of the grid that has continued to throw Nigerians into darkness.
Among other things he said on the thread, Atiku had noted, “I am reliably informed that there was a total National Grid Collapse at precisely 12:23pm today. This is one collapse too many. It is the 6th time this is happening this year alone.”
Reacting to Atiku’s tweet, Sowore said, “The National Electrical grid collapse started when you and Obasanjo invested $16 billion to procure darkness for Nigeria, the @MBuhari regime came to gazette grid collapse as a law.
“Alhaji @atiku, don't pretend that you care about the National Grid!”
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has been accused of spending $16 billion on the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) to increase Nigeria’s power generation to 10,000 megawatts.
However, when President Muhammadu Buhari came to power and vowed to probe the alleged $16 billion investment in the national power sector, Obasanjo denied the allegation, describing it as “incorrect information based on ignorance.”
The House of Representatives had in 2008 described the alleged $16 billion spent on power projects between 1999 and 2007 as “a colossal waste.”
Civil Society groups including SERAP had called for a probe of the funds but in a statement by the Media Aide to the former President, Kehinde Akinyemi, published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Obasanjo denied the allegation.
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