How master plan will revamp Nigeria’s energy sector – FG

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has said the 2022 Revised National Energy Policy (RNEP) and the National Energy Master Plan (NEMP) will positively impact Nigeria’s energy sector.

Onu, who made this assertion in a statement signed by him at the weekend, pointed out that the revised policy and master plan would enable Nigeria take optimum advantage of available sources of energy in the country.

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The statement reads in part: “Nigeria has abundance of crude oil, fossil fuels, and variants of renewable energy (solar, hydro, wind, geothermal and biomass), in commercial quantities, and a good mix of all these will greatly improve energy supply in the country.”

The RNEP and NEMP were developed by the Energy Commission Nigeria (ECN), a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

In a chat with journalists on Friday, the Director General of ECN, Prof Eli Bala, said the RNEP and the NEMP had been approved by the federal government through the National Executive Council (FEC) and would enhance performance in the energy sector through proper coordination because the policy would provide an instrument for the coordination of the implementation of government policies.

Giving a background to the documents, Bala said in 1990, the commission charged with the responsibility for the strategic planning and coordination of national policies in the field of energy in all its ramifications, initiated a committee comprising of stakeholders in the nation’s energy sector to draft a National Energy Policy (NEP), hitherto non-existent.

He explained that the draft NEP was submitted to government in 1993 and was reviewed severally by inter-ministerial committees and was finally approved by the federal government in April, 2003, and was launched by Mr President on June 20, 2005.

Bala elucidated that arising from the 2003 NEP, a national committee was constituted in 2007 with membership drawn from the stakeholders to draft the NEMP.

According to him, NEMP is a roadmap for the implementation of the NEP that sought to achieve the goals of policy by converting its strategies to actionable programmes, activities and projects with timelines.