Lagos Restates Commitment to Steady Power Supply

Lagos State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Olawale Oluwo has stressed the commitment of the state government to providing steady power supply for the people of the state through the light up Lagos initiative introduced by the state Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on December 9, 2015.

He said the intention was to make sure that the administration takes street light to every part of the state. “We will also want to ensure that where we have street light we will make sure that are working. The light up Lagos initiative is not only about street lights; street light is only a small component of it”, he added.

He explained that the governor, who used the initiative vigorously during his electoral campaigns, has been very much committed to the initiative, stressing that the initiative was at the implementation stage.

Oluwo, who disclosed this at a media briefing to mark the Badagry Electrification intervention, which was part of the light up Lagos initiative, said the initiative was predicated on the fact that the state is not to generate, transmit, distribute and supply the gas of the power generators, adding that the other stakeholders who have bought the power asset following the privatisation programme of the federal government they are the ones to carry out those duties.

He further stated that the concept of the Light up Lagos is divided into six stages, which are the power advisory board, independent power supply (which we have been doing before as a state, and which we have about five one at Lekki, Ikeja, Alausa, and the last one powering the secretariat at Alausa), the independent power project and others.

Oluwo said: “Therefore what it means is that the state is now moving away from the concept of creating Integrated Power Plants (IPP) that generate power to the state, to moving to make government provide power to the people in collaboration with other stakeholders. The state is moving away from providing power to itself, to working with stakeholders to ensure that power comes to the people.

“Then for the street lighting which is the second part of the light up Lagos campaign. We have a programme we are following to make sure we deliver on that. The first we did was to ensure that all the street lights in Lagos can be put under one basket because street light used to be scattered amongst almost nine agencies of government which made the management to be very difficult.

“Then we had the Lagos state Electricity Board (LSEB), Lagos state Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) Lagos state Ministry of Works and Infrastructure (LSMW), even at the federal level, we had Federal Airport Authority (FAAN) and we also had Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) which was used to power the street light of Third Mainland bridge, we also had Senators and House of Representative members who saw construction of street light as part of their corporate social responsibility and the local government who are owners of the street light we are bringing into the neighbourhood.

“We are moving from that to connect all of them and create a national grid so that we can power the state and bring light to the neighbourhood.