By Godfrey AKON
Vice President, Kashim Shettima, has stressed the urgency of improving the economic condition of Nigeria, saying 45 per cent of Nigerians lack access to electricity.
Shettima, who disclosed this at an energy transition symposium organized by Development Agenda Magazine, in Abuja, revealed that the country’s GDP per capita is half of that of Egypt and a third of that of South Africa.
Represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Power and Infrastructure, Sadiq Wanka, the vice president said the full implementation of the Nigeria Energy Transition would not be easy as the country requires about $10 billion annually to achieve energy transition by 2060.
“With 45% of Nigerians lacking access to electricity, and GDP per capita that is half that in Egypt and a third of that in South Africa, the urgency of, improving the economic condition of Nigerians is clear, but there are critical environmental/considerations which if not adequately managed would actually hamper our ability to change the lives of millions of our people for the better.
“If we take the issue of financing alone funding the energy transition requires investments of over $10 billion per year up to 2060. Majority of this money would necessarily come from the private sector including through initiatives to access high -integrity carbon markets,” he said.
Shettima however stated that the administration of President Bola Tinubu was willing to take the difficult decisions and the rich resource base and depth of human capital in the country will ensure our success.
He added that “the energy transition plan is very clear on the need for Nigeria to become a net-zero economy by 2060 but also with the critical realization that we must maximise our petroleum resources in short term to provide the base-load energy that will turbocharge the economy.
“It requires concerted effort locally and international collaboration to source financing and to prepare the Nigerian workforce for a Net-Zero economy and to have a truly just energy transition.”
Also speaking, a former Minister of Power, Prof Barth Nnaji, who described climate change as an existential issue, decried the trust deficit in the campaign for cleaner energy led by some European countries.
According to him, many developing countries do not trust the western world in its campaign to end fossil fuel, adding that fossil fuel and coal are producing about 60 per cent of energy in the US, a country that is trying to reduce fossil fuel.
Nnaji, however, noted that Nigeria needs to be focused on protecting itself in the energy transition process, and with 206 trillion cubic feet of gas, the country can navigate towards that as gas will continue to be the main source of energy in decades to come.
The former minister added that the country also needs to wean itself from oil as it has enormous capacity in producing all kinds of energy.
On her part, the Director, West Africa Office of Ford Foundation, Dr Chichi Aniagulo-Okoye, who stressed the reality of climate change, said the issue in Africa and Nigeria, is more complicated in the sense that Africa is one of the least emitters of carbon.
“And so, the focus is not so much on decarbonization for us but on the justice question, the climate justice question; because the world is transiting from fossil fuel to green energy but Africa is actually not transiting because for us it is still going to be the exploitation of minerals.
“So, at the community level and in many of our communities, people are still going to be dealing with the environmental degradation of exploitation, so it’s just going to move from oil and gas you know um to lithium and all the other minerals.
“And so, we are saying, we want to make sure that communities are able to benefit from the extraction that happens in the community because it’s an issue of justice. We realize that natural resource exploitation everywhere creates untold inequalities untold hardship on the community.
“We are supporting civil society organizations and also the government in making sure that the energy transition plan is one that takes our peculiar needs into consideration and one that prioritises communities and the vulnerable especially women and children, and ensures that many of the mistakes that were made with exploitation and exploration of crude oil is not repeated,” she said.
Editor in Chief of Development Agenda Magazine, Paddy Ezeala, said the transition to cleaner energy was a global phenomenon and energy is at the centre economic development.
Ezeala, who is also the convener of the symposium, lamented that even with the use of fossil fuel Nigeria was not yet energy-competitive and with the emphasis on energy transition, businesses would be affected and there would be loss of jobs, especially in a monocultural economy like Nigeria which is oil-dependent.
He said the issue of social justice and equity should be addressed in the transition process, stating that transiting to energy competitiveness should be done in a just and equitable manner locally and internationally.
He said this would ensure that people are not put at economic disadvantage, adding that there should be contributions visibly seen from countries that have significantly contributed to global warming to address the issue of climate justice.