Expect Power This Week, Barth Nnaji Assures Aba Electricity Users

Former Minister of Power and chairman of Aba Power, Prof Barth Nnaji, has assured that Power supply to the Aba Ring-fenced Area consisting of nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State would be resorted this week.

Nnaji disclosed this today, at the Osisioma Ngwa, headquarters of Abs Power Electric Limited (APLE), when members of the Abia State House of Assembly Committee on Power and Public Utilities led by the Hon Aaron Uzodike, chairman of the committee, and Stephen Akachukwu Ucheonye, a member of the committee, paid a visit to the facility.

Ucheonye, who said that they were rattled by the prolonged blackout “that disrupted the constant power supply we have been having in this part of the country”.

It was gathered that the electricity restoration will follow the arrival in the country of a key component of the gas pressure system named the Clutch Gear and Starter Motor which was imported by Heirs Energies, the operator of the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 17 and gas provider to the 188-Megawatt Geometric Power Plant in the Osisioma Industrial District in Aba.

The ring-fence, famous for reliable power since its commission two years ago, has been without electricity since last Thursday when Heirs Energy announced the collapse of the Clutch Gear and Starter Motor at its Associated Gas Gathering Plant at Obigbo in Rivers State due to old age.

The AGG facilities were built between 50 and 60 years ago, and their components have for decades to be available on the shelf, according to Ejike Dike, a mechanical engineer and power consultant who has been monitoring the gas infrastructure Heirs Energies inherited from the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SDPC).

Nnaji lauded Heirs Energies for working “day and night to source this critical component of the AGG plant from the United States and put it on a cargo chartered straight to Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos where it underwent Customs formalities.

“Geometric Power volunteered to pay the cost of flying it to Port Harcourt Airport because of the urgency, but Heirs Energies chose to transport at its own cost to Rivers State by road at its own cost because there are no cargo planes between Lagos and Port Harcourt”.

Apologizing profusely to businesses and individuals for the electricity loss in the last few days due to the gas supply disruption, Nnaji requested the Federal Government to resolve gas issues in the power sector because “73% of Nigeria’s electricity is from gas-fired power plants.

“Nigeria cannot be among the six countries with the highest natural gas deposits across the globe, and we are still experiencing gas-related crises”.

In response, the Abia State House of Assembly Committee on Power and Public Utilities chairman thanked Nnaji for his personal devotion to the resolution of the gas shortage to not just the Geometric Power Plant but also other thermal plants in the country, so that the country could get over the debilitating perennial electricity crisis.

“Our people in Aba and elsewhere are surprised that the efficient and reliable power we have been enjoying should suffer a severe crisis of this nature”, he declared, “so they mandated us to find out the true situation and how the House of Assembly, the Abia State government and even the people themselves can assist”.

The lawmakers promised to report their findings to the state legislature and “the Abia people who sent us on this enormously rewarding and enlightening fact-finding visit”.