The state governments have been urged to complement the federal government’s effort in providing nationwide access to electricity.
The Minister of State for Power, Goddy Jedy-Agba, stated this yesterday at a stakeholders’ workshop by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) in Abuja on collaborations with states for accelerating rural electrification.
He said, “Recent events have shown the need to focus on deploying more off-grid solutions to complement the effort of the federal government in ensuring that there is a reliable supply of electricity nationwide.
“To have nationwide access to electricity, we have to focus on both enhancing the national grid and the off-grid solutions.”
The workshop was held with support from the Africa Clean Energy – Technical Assistance Facility (ACE-TAF) funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF).
The board Chairman of REA, Col Abdulazeez Musa Yar’Adua (Rtd), said the workshop was key to realising the objective of increasing energy access to the unserved and underserved communities in Nigeria.
He said, “There is a need to ensure adequate stakeholders’ coordination with the states to ensure that we are all working together towards the same purpose of increasing energy access in line with the REA’s mandate.”
The Managing Director of REA, Ahmad Salihijo, said the agency had adopted several business models that allowed the REA to partner with private companies to deploy off-grid energy solutions to rural communities.
