Blame FG for Importation of Generators into Nigeria

June 12, 2014 – Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Public Account, Bolaji Yusuf Ayinla has attributed increasing rate of importation of generating sets into the country to ineptitude by the Federal Government to provide adequate power supply to the populace.

The lawmaker made this pronouncement while speaking at a weekly programme organized by the members of the Lagos State House of Assembly correspondents at Alausa, Ikeja.

He observed that the generators dealers were capitalizing on the lapses of the Federal Government to import generators having known that people have no other choice than to patronize the them (dealers).

“Federal government is to be blame because it fails to provide electricity; the generators dealers only has 10 percent of the blame. If the federal government had done the right thing, the dealers would have no other choice than to stop the importation.”

The lawmaker, who is also a generators dealer recalled the ENRON project that was initiated by the former governor of Lagos State, Ahmed Tinubu, adding that the ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo scuttled the innovative idea.

He pointed out that the politicking of the Tinubu’s idea had responsible for the setback in terms of electricity generation in Lagos State, saying governments are expected to run without irrespective of political party that is in power.

Ayinla who is representing Mushin II reiterated that majority of Nigerians are living below 1 dollar per day because of epileptic power supply, adding that jobs are not provided and that according to him, responsible for lacklustre interest in self employment as people could not work independently to provide jobs.

He said the problem of power also contributed to failure in the manufacturing sector. “If you want to go into manufacturing sector, you must be very careful because diesel will finish you out of business.

Reacting to the proposed part time legislature being suggested by members of the National Conference, the lawmaker said “though, it sounds like a good idea but I don’t think it is good for us here in Nigeria.”

He was of the view that making legislature in Nigeria work on part time basis will make the arm of government not achieve much in terms of legislation.

“If you make our legislature to be on part time basis, then nothing much will be achieved, because the lawmakers won’t have the time to do much in terms of oversight functions. You have to consider committee works, if you say we should work on part time, how do we do all these things? So part time legislation won’t make us achieve much,” Ayinla added.