Senate President, Bukola Saraki has said that solving Nigeria’s electricity problems is a major priority. Saraki said further that “inexcusable mistakes have been made in the past that brought us to this point.” He made the comments on Tuesday, February 7, during a 2-day interactive workshop on the Nigerian power sector for the National Assembly. Read his full speech at the workshop below: .
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I am very delighted that we are gathered together today to seek a solution to one of, if not the most significant challenge to our quest for economic development; the issue of providing adequate power for our economy. The Nigerian power sector in spite of the enormous resources committed to it within the last 14 years has remained in a perilous state, delivering very disappointing results. .
Today, we are on the verge of a total systemic breakdown and I see this as an opportunity to stop this train from derailing completely. Opportunities for both the Legislature and Executive to come together to forge a solution to this perennial problem have been wasted in the past. We cannot afford to waste the opportunity we have now. .
We owe it to the people who have entrusted us with the privilege of working out solutions to their problems by electing us to our various offices that we are hard on our heels to bring them solutions not complaints. However, we cannot shy away from the fact that inexcusable mistakes have been made in the past that brought us to this point and we must be willing to face up to them and clearly delineate them in order to ensure that we do not return to the mistakes of the past. .
Clearly some of these where innocent mistakes, others were rather the product of selfish interests, some fraudulent, some borne out of ignorance and others glaring lack of capacity apparent from day one. All of these combined has brought us to the mess we now have to face up to. .
To get out however, sacrifice has to be made and borne by all. We must agree to put Nigeria first and our contributions to this must be genuine. .