Hon Sam Onuigbo, a former Member of the House of Representatives whose Legislative efforts saw the successful sponsorship of Nigeria’s Climate Change Act has restated his belief in the ability of renewable energy to provide the energy needed by the country to fully industrialize.
Speaking during series of interventions he made at the 14th International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA )Assembly; the IRENA Legislators Forum; Regional Energy Transition Outlooks in Africa : Operational Workshop on Regional Scenarios; World Future Energy Summit hosted by MASDAR, which took place recently in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Onuigbo disclosed that Nigeria has a huge energy market with about 90million underserved people.
The former National Assembly Member pointed out that that the government has gone ahead to create enabling environments for the flourishing of investments in renewable energy in order to address this huge deficit in line with the Renewed Hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
While elaborating on the concrete steps Nigeria has taken to make this possible, he noted that the Constitutional amendment that removed electricity from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List and the subsequent enactment of the Electricity Act 2023 with provisions for off-grid and mini-grid generation and distribution of power are game changers.
Chief Onuigbo who is also, a member of the Board of North East Development Commission, NEDC, further stated that the Climate Change Act with its provision for research and development on renewables, Nigeria’s Clean Cooking Policy which seeks to achieve universal clean cooking energy access by 2030, and recent provision of subsidies to support the development and the operation of privately owned and operated solar hybrid mini-grids in unserved and underserved areas courtesy of a US$750m World Bank loan facilitated under the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, are also proofs of the country’s commitment to provide fertile grounds for the country to benefit from the global ambition of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 and consequently industrialize therefrom.
According to him,Nigeria is therefore a fertile ground for investments in renewables.
He however cautioned international investors against repeating the mistakes made by their predecessors during Nigeria’s telecommunications’ sector revolution which saw many of them lose out on the huge market due to wrong perceptions and poor business calculations and decisions.
He therefore urged them to take maximum advantage of this opportunity both for the growth of their businesses, and the country’s growth.
Hanto Daily News reports that Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates was agog just recently with several international events focused on renewable energy investments and expansion as Investors, innovators, academics, business leaders, heads of multinationals, heads of international organisations, Members of Parliament, representatives of governments, etc., gathered during this period to exchange ideas on how to attain global commitment at COP28 to triple renewable energy by 2030 and thus boost sustainable growth.
