FOBTOB Charges Incoming Govt On Electricity, Job Creation

Samuel Mobolaji

The leadership of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association (FOBTOB) has called on the incoming administration to handle the power generation as was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari beyond mere media broadcast.

The leadership of the union, while chatting with selected newsmen in Lagos, cited many unfulfilled promises by outgoing regime as reason for his call.

Identifying the signing of the law by PMB as a right step in the right direction, Oyibo, however, called on president-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to ensure that power generation is improved upon to create competition, break the monopoly in the sector and create more jobs.

According to Oyibo, interested states or corporate bodies that have the interest in power generation should embark on the network base since the existing network is almost obsolete due to overuse.

Noting that the move would inarguably create more direct and indirect jobs, the FOBTOB leader stressed that many youths with hidden and yet untapped useful skills would be self-engaged when there is constant electricity.

He noted that, because distribution infrastructures are already owned by private investors (by virtue of the privatization that happened in 2013), a lot of collaboration and synergy should happen between current investors which should be tailored toward improving on the existing network infrastructure.

Still commenting on Buhari’s move to liberalise the power sector, Oyibo noted that, breaking the monopoly of the power sector is long overdue.

On his own part, a reliable anonymous source within Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), while expressing his reservation over the development, noted that, for it to materialise and become reality, and though the Constitution has given the States powers to legislate on the generation, transmission and distribution of energy within areas covered by the national grid, this power is not automatic.

States will have to domesticate this law within their states via their state house of assembly, he stressed.