Our target is to impact minimum of 500,000 persons with our power projects — Ondo State Commissioner for Energy

In this interview, Engr. Razaq Obe speaks to Nigerian NewsDirect Deputy Editor, Mr Mathew Ibiyemi on the power reforms going on in the state and updates on the government’s ambition to make the state the Bitumen capital of Africa. Excerpts:

One of the major impedi ments to economic growth in Nigeria is unstable power supply. Ondo state has however witnessed significant progress in power distribution since the 2nd term of Governor Akeredolu in 2020. What steps have been taken?

The issue of electricity is a national issue and the administration under Buhari has taken some unprecedented steps. We have what we call the Presidential power initiative which has consolidated a bilateral agreement with Germany, and Germany through one of its companies Siemens will revamp our distribution and transmission infrastructure. Since then, there has been a break in the link. You can generate as much power as you need but how do you get the power to the people? A lot of substations are ring built and in Ondo State we will be taking delivery of at least two. One of it is by NDDC in Erinje and another by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). So when you have substations where you can send power from the coastal station to get to the substations, what is left is to do the last mile distribution infrastructure and that’s where Ondo state is focused.

The general improvement in electricity is national because so much more is being done at the national level. For our state, we have identified the areas where we must act. We are paying attention to distribution because that is what is in our hands. I may not be able to build interstate towers which the FG has already done but if we spend N3 billion for the next five years there will be no part of the state that is not connected to the national grid. It is consistency that brings change. Don’t commence and halt it. Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has begun the journey by first creating a ministry that oversees power issues which we didn’t have before. So we are not resting on our oars to make a difference.

The transmission line that links the Oba Ile substations had wailing issues that had lingered for more than 5 years and within 6 months of my appointment as Commissioner we resolved these issues. In another few months, it is anticipated that the tower in Ilara-Mokin will be completed. So if you have these substations up, the kind of power you will have to evacuate will almost triple because you now have the infrastructure to accept increased capacity voltage than you hardly would do with something less. This is changing. This year alone, we are spending over N1.5billion on rural electrification, urban electrification, peri-urban electrification, that’s a whole lot and dramatically above what we have ever committed. Mr Governor and the state leadership are seeing reasons to do more in the power sector. Once Siemens is done with their delivery which is 2025, it is going to be graduated and part of delivery will commence from 2024 and we will begin to see a kind of quantum leap in our available power. Ondo does not want to be caught unable to deliver in the last mile when you have more electricity generation, distribution has improved, transmission has improved and now to distribute to the people you said you are waiting for a distribution company? All these DisCos are just vendors and cannot be relied on to build our infrastructure. It is better we build our own infrastructure and with the new law in place, the State can generate, distribute and transmit in this space so, it means we can go ahead to do much more. We are not at the mercy of anyone and at this point as a state we are working on our policy to reflect a change in the constitutional requirement.

We are involving experts in the creation of our law and also to evolve a roadmap that will be able to be used by incoming administrations. We are working to have a solid ground granted in the next 2 years, the power narrative nationally will change going by all indices.  In Ondo state, it will be dramatic because we truly want to do much more.

We are also working on the issue of metering and to improve the issue of collection. We aim to make Ondo State a state where collection is higher than any other state but to achieve this, distribution must be improved and the lackadaisical attitude of DisCos must give way. People must see what you will be providing before they will have the encouragement to pay. You do estimated billing but why will it take eternity and half for DisCos to provide metering possibilities to people?

Metering and connection should be 5 & 6. In fact, if you have not settled the issues of metering, connection should not be in the mix but they let things be the way things are because they want to continue to be able to arbitrarily dictate what people pay and that’s going to change with the new law, we will bend them to do the right thing. We must meter every consumer and that’s the first point of call. For those who are cynical, they should be optimistic. In this country, I can boast that nothing near the Buhari policies for electricity has been executed.

So are you saying one of your strategies to improve power supply in Ondo state is to discard private distributing companies from the mix since you have identified them as a problem?

Something tells me that eradicating the distribution system handled by DisCos is the future. We can’t be abrasive in policy making or in administrative measures. We know flipping a DisCo is not a walk in the park, you have to be intentional, meticulous to get it right. What I know is that of the 18 LGs in Ondo state, about 4 have not had electricity for more than a decade. Our reasoning is to yank that cluster where BEDC has failed to provide electricity for over a decade so we can consider ceding the place to some other organisation so distribution will be better. So you won’t tell me stories around not installing infrastructure. The legacy issue shouldn’t be in that neighbourhood, because the Erin Ijesha station is coming on board, which is about 99 per cent complete for pre-commissioning. We don’t want to have power in that cluster handed to the same people who have not done well over the years. We might be tapping another organisation to provide distribution. Ondo State may be the first state to test the constitutional amendment. We have a clear case and by that law, if you are unable to provide power in a certain jurisdiction over a certain period of time, you can’t claim to be a DisCo there, talk more of 14 years. Ondo State will be taking steps but we are first trying to build cluster offtake units and we are going to address the areas with the worst issues before deciding on who best serves our people. The law is an enabler and it reflects the yearnings of Nigerians. It is the first audacious step to debottleneck electricity in Nigeria and in no time, results will begin to show for it. My prayer is that the rail and power sector and even the minerals, will soon get to the point where the federal government will ease its hold on the progress of those sectors.

Governor Akeredolu last year made public his desire to make Ondo State the Bitumen capital of Africa having received a mining license from the government. Can you provide any updates on the progress with this project?

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu is the first governor who is strategic about getting results. Government should be government, while private sector should be private sector. It’s not the business of a state to produce bitumen by itself. Nobody does that anywhere in the world and that’s where some governments fail. What the governor is doing right now is providing all the support to organisations that are willing. I will single one of them out which the most serious organisation doing the right thing; Southwest Bitumen Limited. They are sampling and profiling the bitumen from which they now have information for extraction. The Bitumen which lies in a formation from Okitipupa runs through to Ondo to Ogun to Lagos to East Ghana. So, if you have information here you can use it to extract anywhere. This is the best effort so far.

Also, what the government has not done at the Federal level, they also embarked on an aero magnetic survey sometime last year to know the extent of tar sand deposit because producing bitumen is not like producing oil.  You don’t just drill to a depth and pressure then it begins to jump out, when you drill in Ondo you will get the bitumen and associated sand. You first need to have an area of depth to have it at a large economic scale and be willing to have monster excavators that can bring it out and you need to build your own fractionalization unit where you can sort and actually extract this bitumen from the associated sand. By my calculations, all things being equal is that South West bitumen will get to production given that they have dried quite a number of places, they have done samples and received financial support. So much money has been spent and they are determined to get to what will delight not only the people of Ondo State but the entire country because we shouldn’t have such a quantum of resources and have done little or nothing with it all this while. We are on course and once a company succeeds, others can follow. We have quite a number of people with blocs there, we as a state government own three blocs ourselves so if someone succeeds, it will become easy because the market for bitumen is huge. As of 2020, Nigeria was importing about N10 billion worth of bitumen. So by implication, there is an existing local market, regional market so all of this is tied together. The country will be better for it and Ondo State, of course, will be able to generate revenue and create employment. It is in the interest of everyone for our bitumen to be produced and I am optimistic that we will get there soon.

What will be the impact of the production of Bitumen especially for the host communities?

We will not fall into the same trap with oil gas exploration across the country. This will be different. We have been doing community sensitisation reaching out to people, talking to them and when it is time to begin to extract we will ensure that all of the people in the area where extraction is taking place are involved in the community development plan of that organisation and with the state government we ensure all “Ts” are crossed before any organisation’s operation is commenced. So far, I think they have been cooperative, all the hazards are being identified and we have a strong stewardship of the safety standards so we won’t entertain any health issues in the future. We will ensure it is done safely to set a standard because once they start producing, many other organisations will want to get on board. We won’t let extraction pose any risk to the health of residents.

I know this administration is ending soon but what would you attribute as the modest achievements of the Akeredolu-led administration in giving people the dividends of democracy in the power sector in Ondo state?

The people now have where they can go to ask questions. On a daily basis, we receive at least one memo per day as touching power issues. We have intervened by giving transformers to communities. Since we came on board, we have issued more than a dozen transformers with people receiving it with joy. This year what we have done is to ensure we get budgetary allocations so now we estimate to distribute about 50 transformers across the state. For issues like a neighbourhood being cut off from power, this ministry kicks in and intervenes to resolve the issue. We keep having periodic meetings and engaging critical stakeholders.

So much has been done within a year and few months. The plan we have for the year when we begin to execute is for our project to impact a minimum of 500,00 people and we expect that this will be scaled up when we repeat this the same next year.