Peter Obi, Labour Party’s presidential candidate, critiques Nigeria’s power outages despite generating less than 5,000 MW, compared to South Africa’s 40,000 MW. He highlights Nigeria's struggles with frequent blackouts and advocates for visionary leadership to improve power supply, boost education, and healthcare, and shift to a productive economy.
Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, has spoken out about Nigeria’s ongoing electricity challenges. Despite the country’s significant economic standing, Obi pointed out that Nigeria is unable to generate even 10% of the electricity South Africa produces, yet it continues to experience frequent power outages.
In a post shared on X, Obi highlighted that while South Africa, once the second-largest economy in Africa after Nigeria, generates approximately 40,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity, Nigeria struggles to produce less than 5,000 MW. This stark contrast in electricity generation has contributed to the national power grid’s failure, which collapsed on Tuesday, resulting in a nationwide blackout.
Obi lamented that Nigerians have endured power outages nine times in 2024 alone, stressing that South Africa, which has a population of a quarter of Nigeria's, recently celebrated seven months of uninterrupted power supply. In contrast, Nigeria continues to grapple with frequent blackouts.
The former governor of Anambra state called for visionary leadership to address the country’s power crisis. He emphasized that the issue is not rooted in tribal or religious divisions but in the lack of competent and forward-thinking leadership. Obi further urged that the country’s limited resources be invested in critical sectors like education, health, and infrastructure to address the power challenges and improve the overall quality of life for Nigerians.
