The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, highlighted the significance of a reliable power supply in tackling Nigeria’s development hurdles, emphasizing that virtually every aspect of the country’s operations depends on it.
Echono made these remarks during a courtesy visit by the management team of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to his office in Abuja, Nigeria. He stressed that Nigeria cannot achieve substantial progress in production, value creation, and employment without addressing critical infrastructure issues such as power supply.
“Until we have a reliable power supply in the country, our development trajectory will be flipping and flopping. Every amount of money you spend on power translates into direct growth in your GDP,” Echono emphasized.
“We are talking about our research activities on our campuses, even our industrial sector. You can’t be competitive when you are spending much money buying diesel, having an ideal time,” he added.
“That is why, in the spirit of the renewed hope agenda of the President, we are according top priority to this power initiative for our tertiary institutions,” he further stated.
Echono lauded the REA for furnishing alternative sources of energy, particularly solar systems, to tertiary institutions amid power shortages from the national grid. He underlined that adequate power supply remains pivotal for the success of tertiary institutions in Nigeria, especially in research endeavors.
“As Nigeria moves to improve not just physical infrastructure, but also the research infrastructure in tertiary institutions, a lot of this requires a constant supply of power.”
“There are certain samples you must maintain at certain temperatures for a prolonged period. There are certain operations you do in the medical laboratory and other sciences in which you cannot afford to lose power even for a second.”
“And if we want to guarantee that we can provide learning environments that are competitive to others across the globe, the primary thing we must do is to guarantee power on our campuses,” he expounded.
He expressed TETFund’s willingness to continually collaborate with the electrification agency in some of its interventions but acknowledged that the agency faces funding challenges, which it is working to surmount through securities.
Earlier in the meeting, the Managing Director of REA, Ahmad Salihijo, articulated that the purpose of the visit was to garner support and guidance and collaborate on implementing more alternative electrification projects in Nigerian tertiary institutions to facilitate uninterrupted academic activities.
“We have seen the impact, how it helps the educational system, especially as universities are delving into advanced technology. It becomes a very key point for them to have a constant electricity supply,” Salihijo explained.
Salihijo mentioned that, under the agency’s tertiary institution power supply program, seven teaching hospitals have been provided with alternative power supply, and out of the 27 federal universities with which they have contractual agreements, they are presently committed to 24, with 23 remaining.
