By Moses Okorie
The Tinubu Media Volunteers (TMV) has attributed the revival of the $2.3 billon Siemens power project as a testament to President Bola Tinubu’s progressive leadership style.
It said in a statement signed by its Chairman Chukwudi Enekwechi and Secretary Segun Ogedengbe that the project initially due for completion in 2025 is now to be completed in 2030.
The statement reads in full: “We acknowledged that the Siemens deal, coming under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), was initiated by the former Buhari administration but remained dormant until the emergence of the Tinubu administration.
“The initiative which is also covered under the Nigeria Electrification Roadmap is a multi-layered, phased partnership designed to modernise the country’s power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.
“The project which was initiated in 2018 was initially due for completion in 2025, but has continued to experience bureaucratic delays until President Tinubu revived it, a fact recently confirmed by the German authorities.
“This, for us, is a clear demonstration that the federal government is serious about attracting foreign direct investments into Nigeria and ending the nightmare of regular power outages.
“We also recall that through the instrument of Nigeria-German bilateral relations, the late president Muhammadu Buhari and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel had on August 31, 2018, entered into a partnership for the Siemens power project which was aimed at resolving the perennial power problem in the country, but since then the implementation has been stalled.
“It is also noted that the Siemens project is meant to stabilise the national grid from interruptions and help increase the average generation of power regularly.
“Among the key deliverables under the agreement are the delivery of 10 mobile substations and 10 mega transformers to be deployed across the country.”
The group is convinced that the power project will create jobs for Nigerians and enhance technology transfer especially with the renewed focus by the federal government to complete it as soon as possible.