As Nigeria experiences drop in electricity supply, the government has given the assurance that it will step up power generation to 7,000 megawatts soon.

Mr Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity has disclosed

Akande told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that government was working assiduously to step up power generation from 5000 mw to 7000 mw.

He said that the country began to experience low electricity supply due to pipeline vandalism and the bombings in the Niger Delta region.

“When the administration came in as a matter of fact we were doing less than 300mw.

“So we were not doing 5000 mw when we came in; actually, we were the ones that took it to 5000 mw for the first time in the history of this country.

“In February, we took it to 5000 mw but unfortunately it was that same February that the bombing of the oil pipelines started, so it brought down the output.”

He explained that government has embarked on incremental power, a system to increase power supply in a different way.

“So a lot of transmission facilities and infrastructure for power are being rejuvenated, trying to tap more from gas.

“So, you are going to be seeing more of gas-to-power, government is rejuvenating quite a number of them, ‘’he said.

He said that the Federal Government had signed Memorandum of Understanding with companies that would supply gas that would ultimately increase the output to 500 mw.

Akande said that by rejuvenating some of the transmission facilities and infrastructure government was doing what is called “incremental power ‘’ in order to bring up the megawatt.

He said government would be carrying these processes in the geo pollical zones of the country in order to provide constant and sustainable electricity to the people.

“Government is working, it is one of the areas we are working very diligently on a daily basis to sort out the problems,’’ he said.

He said that there were plans also by government to effect public, private partnership to ensure that Mambila project came on stream in power generation.

On the issues of idle power plants, Akande explained that a lot of the plants, facilities were not being utilized.

“The power plants are all disconnected and we are trying to fix them so that the plants will bring significant increment to the output.

“So, government is trying to see how this problem can be solved and we believed that there would be an improvement in power sector,’’ he said.