President Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu has explained why Nigeria is still selling power to some neighbouring countries despite pilling debts.
According to Shehu “Power exported to Niger, Benin and Togo are based on Multilateral Energy Sales Agreement with the Government of Nigeria is on the basis that they would not dam the waters that feed our major power plants in Kainji, Shiroro and Jebba.”
Two neighbouring countries, Niger and Benin, currently owe Nigeria a total of N1.2 billion for electricity supplied, the presidency has said.
Mr Shehu was reacting to a recent report by Punch newspaper whose figure, he said, was inaccurate.
He said the latest figure was arrived at after the countries paid most of their debts.
“As of the last review in 2019, the amount of indebtedness to all three customers stood at $69 million, subsequent upon which several payments were made to NBET. Much of this has been repaid by the debtor nations,” he said.
Many Nigerians have criticised the export of electricity by Nigeria when the country is not able to meet the electricity needs of its population, with millions living in darkness everyday.
