The Nigerian government has recommended capital punishment for those vandalizing and stealing electricity infrastructure across the country.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu made the recommendation while reacting to the frequent vandalism of power infrastructure in Abuja on Monday.
According to him, the power sector is going through the serious issue of vandalization, and theft of power infrastructure.
“Capital punishment is not too much because they are gradually killing the nation. They are killing the economy. They are killing the people.
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“Vandals are getting too much comfort all over transmission and distribution power assets.
“This is not only frustrating our efforts to achieve uninterrupted power supply, It is driving the nation backward,” the Minister said.
Adelabu said that Nigerians must realize that these assets belong to them, so they must jealousy protect them, adding that it was the taxpayers’ money that was used to acquire them.
He held that the Ministry of Power is collaborating with the office of the National Security Adviser and security agencies to protect them as it costs a lot of money to replace them when damaged.
The minister said that the ministry is also collaborating with states to have their protection framework to protect the infrastructure.
According to him, the Federal Government is also trying to provide at least two million meters every year.
“So that in four to five years, the huge meter gap will disappear or significantly reduce.
“There is already a presidential metering initiative that I am working on the metering gap. We already have a seed fund of ₦75 billion to start working, and we are also going to have some debt injection from the Nigerian Sovereign Investments Authority to complement the fund.
“There is even a possibility of increasing the fund to ₦100 billion. We have a planned intervention to reduce the meter gap. But the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) must also sit up.
“We need to interrogate their metering plans and give them the minimum target they must achieve in a year,” he said.
