Rep. Magaji Da’u, the Chairman of House Committee on Power, has blamed reoccurring National Grid collapse on obselet infrastructure inherited by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
Da’u, who represents Birnin Kudu/Buji Federal Constituency of Jigawa, said this when he fielded reporters’ questions after a reception in his honour on the completion of his PhD programme in Birninkudu on Sunday.
“I’m not trying to depend TCN, but they’ve inherited old infrastructure interns of whatever. They don’t even have a scanner in this country to monitor what happens.
“You see, up to last month, they could not even access their network in Shiroro because of banditry,” Da’u said.
He said that the House of Representatives plans to hold a public hearing on Oct. 22 to seek stakeholders view on the issue.
He expressed opposition to calls for the privatisation of the TCN.
“I’m against privatisation for obvious reason, we’ve privatised DisCos and you see what happened, we have to take them back,” he said.
About 4,000 people were at the reception to welcome back the lawmaker upon successful completion of his PhD programme in Public Administration from University of Scotland.
He expressed optimism that the APC would win the 2023 general election at all levels in the state.
“My people came to celebrate with me on the completion of my PhD programme in Public Administration from the University of Scotland.
“As you can see, over 4,000 people came to celebrate with me. So it is not about how much you’re able to do, but how able you’ve been to meet and connect with the people to make them feel relavant and make them realise that they are important.
“As far as we are concerned, we feel that we have done our best to ensure that APC wins election in Jigawa comes 2023.
“I’m also confident that I will be reelected in 2023 because in this place alone, there are over 4,000 of my constituents from the two local government areas.
“So I’ve told them that if anyone of them can bring five people (voters), that’s 200,00 votes to win the election,” Da’u said.