 President Bola Tinibu has ascended to the electricity bill which was passed in July 2022 in seeking to repel the Electricity and Past Sector Reform Act of 2005 and thus becoming the Electricity Act. The acts now consolidate all legislations dealing with the electricity supply industry to provide a credible and ideal institutional framework to guide the post privatisation phase of the Nigerian electricity supply industry and encourage the private sector investment. The primary aim of the bill has stated in its first session is to create a comprehensive legal and institutional framework to guide the Nigerian electricity supply industry. It also aims to demonopolisise degeneration, transmission and distribution of electricity at the national level to empower states, companies, individuals to generate, transmit and distribute electricity. To discuss the latest action by President Tinibu, we now have a public affairs analyst, Wisdom Chap Jumbo joining us to make sense of this. Good evening Jumbo, thank you for joining us. Yes, good evening. Thank you, thank you. All right then, let's get straight to the crux of the matter. President Bola Tinibu as you already know has repelled the Electricity and Past Sector Reform Act of 2005 and has given us into the electricity bill which was passed in July 2002 but just straight to it, I'd like to ask you what exactly is your thoughts on this development? Well, I think it's a welcome development and very good for the sector, it's a long time coming. The admin that happened some time ago on the constitution was a high level one where we first needed to amend the constitution to allow states to be able to transmit and now this law signed by President Tinibu further gives more framework to how the amendment to operate and what the sector would do. So I think it's a very good development for the sector and we should see a lot of states flourish and power should be much more better with this kind of reform that has happened via this act. So I think in my thoughts it's a very, very welcome development and I know the electricity sector is in excitement at the moment because there's a lot that can happen now across the cities of Nigeria with power. So it's a good one. Well, you have talked about being good but then again if you look at it, it's cost-effective, it's not just a project that can be embarked upon just ordinarily. Do you think that states have the capacity across the nation to generate power and also distribute amongst orders? Well, I think for the states, it's not time for states to get to work. I think states like Lagos and those states are already starting up with something. Whether you will be able to do it or not, first thing to get the law right at the state level. So a lot of states like Lagos who are already ahead with their own policy to see how they can create a market at the state level, they will be way ahead, which is fine. So other states need to go back now to the drawing board to say, look, what do we need to do? How do we need to begin to create this market and work with this law? So there's more work for the states to do now, which is good. When you decentralize the issue of power like this, which this law has done, we should begin to see some improvements. So state governors, state governments, state assemblies, they need to now go back to the drawing table and be more strategic with this policy around power for their states. Because now there will be no more excuse to say what should we have done differently? Because now the law is in your hands. So I think what states can do depends on how well they put the work into it. But how is this going to translate in terms of supply across the country? Well, in terms of supply, there are many ways you need to look at this. First of all, you need to look at the highlights of it. For example, the aspects where the labor energy is going to benefit more from all of this, which is a very welcome development. So solar, wind power, and the rest of them, we're looking forward to see how that will improve with this law. So the good part of it from this law is by the time states begin to legislate, we see that this will trickle down in many ways. And particularly I'm very curious to see how states are going to do well mixing on-grid and off-grid sources of power to be able to perform. The only problem I see per se in my own thought is how NEC is really going to handle all of this. For these those who operate in multiple states, what is going to happen now with this law and all of that? So we should see so many, many improvements along the line. For renewable energy, that is my excitement for it. The law assigned by the president now, we allow providers of energy from renewable energy sources, solar, and the rest of them. We boost generation costs. And most importantly, now, if you generate your own power and it's enough, you can even give back into the grid, which is what people have been asking for. So there's a lot, there's a lot. We are still studying the act to see many ways at which this will benefit the sector. But in my thought, this is a very welcome development and the LSS will improve in no time. Just quickly before I let you go, you know over the years the ability to generate power has been a major challenge. And we've also experienced a collapse of the national grid. But you also have some of the persons who would say that generation, power generation is really not the issue. It's the fact that we lack the capacity to transmit what has been generated, even though you can also test that what has been generated is not enough when you look at the population. So how will this play out, you know, with this act? Okay, so the issue of generating, I mean, so with this new law, now what's going to happen basically is at the state level, you now have the mandate to generate, to transmit, and to also distribute. So how you are able to do this within the framework you create at the state level, we now see how you're going to perform. So this implies that electricity generating companies will be mandated to either generate power from renewable energy sources, purchase power generated from renewable energy, or produce any instruments representing renewable energy generating. I mean, so there's a lot you can do. And distribution, which is the issue, I mean, we see more often, metering the houses, metering people to be able to measure, I mean, get costs on what the power that they give out. All of this now we build down to how will the states begin to design their policies, their laws at the state level to decentralize all of these things. So there's a lot of work for the state to do. So look at this law that has been passed, this act that has been passed. Now, what can we do within our own state to say, look, this is what we want to do. And now you're not going to be sticking to one sources. So this law now allows you to, I mean, incorporate other sources, renewable energy, solar, all of that. How do you bring that? How do you work with the upgrade? So all of this is, it depends on the state, really. So I want to see states should already start looking into this law and taking down the key points, the high levels and begin to strategize. What do we begin to do? Because now no one can hold the federal government again for power. It means we have to go back to each state will be residing to say, look, what are the state government doing with power? And if there's areas of collaborations, and I expect one or two states to come to get an area of collaborations. So let's see how that will pan out in a couple of more days and come back again to join them. But generally, this is a fantastic law, in my opinion, and how we utilize this to solve our long-term energy power issues in the country will be some amazing thing that will happen. So I'm looking forward to it. Well, thank you so much, Wisdom Chapa Jombo for being part of the show this evening or the news this evening. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.