 Alright now, Nigeria has been having energy supply challenges with about 86 million people unconnected to the national grid and lacking access to electricity. The sector has remained stagnant over time, with the government still paying subsidy of 70 billion annually to keep the sector afloat. Despite privatization, industry watches posit that with the new act, that's the electricity act that the president just signed last week, states cannot expand opportunities and play key roles in building power plants and complementing the federal government's efforts on the transmission expansion project, while also curbing energy theft in the power industry. Now the national president, National Union of Electricity Employees of Nigeria, NUEE, Martin Uzair, who joins me now all the way from Geneva and Switzerland to discuss further. Good morning to you, Martin. Thanks for joining us on business insights. Yeah, thank you very much, thank you for having me. It is indeed a pleasure. Let's start this by getting, or you sharing your general overview about the recently signed act, the electricity act of 2023. Yeah, thank you very much once again. Yeah, the act, which was signed by the former president, sorry, the president was a replacement of the former act of 2005 and for us, I believe that such acts, looking at some of the indices that was in that act definitely will go a long way to streamline and create a robust framework for the implementation of the electricity sector act, which has not been signed in. But however, we equally be mindful of the fact that even the previous act that was signed has some of the indices that could go a long way to streamline the industry. But because of the not implementation of the context of those acts that created a lot of lacuna in the electricity sectors, and it looks as if those who are mining the sectors doesn't know what they are doing because there is no political way to be able to implement such acts. So this particular act that was signed in as much as we were committed, but then it's not something that we should care about at the moment until we continue to see how the situation unfolds, considering the post-proprietization, because there are so many things that we propose during the stakeholders meeting concerning the issues that has to do with power sector in terms of fully liberalization and commercialization of the sector, especially the distribution angle. We believe that the 11 discourse which have been issued shouldn't have been solved, should have been reviewed, and let the government take responsibility, and furthermore, split those discourse because it's ignorance for just one investor to be in charge of how many states. One discourse will be in charge of five states, and it makes it so difficult for them to work because many of them doesn't have any funds to make sure that these discourse perform very well. And after six, seven years of privatization, I expected that government should have equally reviewed. So I'm going to do them again. So Martin, the question right now would be, because industry watchers are saying that with the new act, states cannot expand opportunities and play key roles in building power plants and complement that of the federal government's effort to expand them, transmission and all of that. And I think that after all those while of privatization, the discourse are not really managing it well. But don't you think that with the new act are giving powers now to the states that would see like an unbundling of the distribution system in power in Nigeria? Yeah, what they did was to give western power to the state government to be able to expand the distribution and giving them license to operate both the direction and the distribution angle, whether in the mini grid system, any investors who have the capacity to be able to generate as low as less than one megawatt, had that opportunity, which was not there in the first act. But at the end of the day, what we are looking at is the capacity to be able to do that. Do they have the capacity to disturb governments and investors who have been either getting to have this act, being assigned, do they have the capacity to finance it? Because most times, you see them, there's ads that was very laudable, we appreciate it and at the end of the day, we were commit, but the implementation is the problem. And that is what has been going on in the power sector. The government has obtained many of them, can't even pay that $2,000 minimum wage. And at what point, we then have the capacity to finance such projects. Yes, we agree that it has really expanded the scope in terms of renewable energies. For me, that is the best area that I really appreciated that the government has really done well, because it has not given the opportunity that people should not harness that area where renewable energies can be used in the direction of electricity and probably distributed to the consumers. But at the end of the day, what matters is the consumers. How are they going to benefit from this? Because if they don't fund it and there is no fund towards the distribution aspect of the industry, then everything will not go back to square one. So for us, we believe that it has expanded the scope and we believe that it will enable the investors to get closer to the consumers and equally enable the consumers to reap from it, especially when there are supply and increase in generation. But at the end of the day, we are also looking at the capacity of those who want to come into this investment. And let it not be that what has happened before. I want to repeat itself. People have the capacity to buy those distribution and generating companies and up to now, we are still hovering about 4,000 megawatt hours. Okay, which leads to my next question right now, Martin, it's good you've mentioned the issue of our capacity and that of implementation, because one would wonder if the private sector would come into play because maybe international partnership, we had issues with the Siemens deal. But let's just leave that aside for one minute and face the next thing. Now, 47% of Nigerians do not have access to greed electricity estimated at around $28 billion, which is equivalent to 2% of GDP. Now, getting access to electricity runs as one of the major constraints for the private sector, according to the 2020 doing business report, with this new development, do you think these issues of consistent power grid collapses would be leaped in the board and you also talked about renewable energy. So do you think that Nigerians will begin to appreciate that aspect and maybe explore the opportunities abounding it? Yes, I really believe that Nigeria should really explore that aspect of electricity generation and distribution, which is involving the renewable energy sources, and that will really help us to expand the industry. But for me and for us, we believe that a lot of things has happened in the power sector that you cannot and will no longer trust those who are even coming, even though sometimes we give them the benefit of that. But the issue is that who are these people that are coming in to mend this? Are they Nigerians? Do they are Nigerians? Where are they getting their funds? Are they borrowing from the banks? Do they have foreign direct investment? And we don't want to subject ourselves in a situation where we will be able to give them the benefit of that because it has happened before. I thought that those who came to invest in the distribution sectors have foreign direct investment. They have the technical knowledge, they have the managerial ability, but we realize that some of these things we are not there and Nigerians we are deceived. So this particular act definitely has created more opportunities for people to go into renewable energy. Fine and good, if we have foreign investment that will bring in foreign direct investment into this, foreign direct investment into this, then definitely Nigerians will continue to believe that there will be an improvement, especially in the area of distribution. We are the Nigerians who have access to electricity and those things could be a mini grid system. It may not be the one that could be tied to the national grid, but if you subject it in a way that government should pass off completely, then I think we are not getting it. Government has business in business and government will continue to fund it, but my concern is that the people who know what they are doing be in charge of this sector, and for them to drive it and have the political will to take decisions. Yes, the power has equally given the National Assembly, I know, the act has given National Assembly the power to do their oversight function and not explicitly to the Minister of Power. It's a welcome development because they can now work side by side with the Minister of Power, and especially in the area of the state energy sector, and that brings into the issue of the regulatory framework, then the next, who should be the habit of, in charge of the regulatory aspect of this, should you call it work to ensure that the framework of which the act has been enacted must be asserted and implemented, and this is not time to be dozed. This is time for them to really work, if they actually want to get this thing right. So I believe that if they are able to do that, and those who want to invest in this have the capacity, have the forms, have the technical abilities, the workers are there. It will even create more employment, because if the energy sector is a standard, both in renewable, but at the state level and local government, then it will enable them to create more employment. I was even going to chip in on that, so you talked about creation of employment and opportunities, the arrival, I was going to ask you that, because with this new development, there's a lot of value addition in the value chain that could be explored in terms of metering, in terms of maybe solar panel and all of that. Can you just tell us about other opportunities that are derivable from this new art? Yes, there are other opportunities, but you are aware that Nigerians have been born in a lot of gas and flaring of gas, and those gases can be converted into a generation of energy. And that is another aspect which we also be looking into is another opportunity. And once it's been done, we are talking about CNG, compressed natural gas. And some of these things can really be harnessed from there, so that you can also use it in terms of fueling the vehicles. Now we are talking about converting vehicles by using natural gas because of the increase in petrol price. Petrol, yes. So we are definitely going to have the wrong way, because the microeconomy and some of the indices that could equally help the artists that could work in fabrications and all of that. So some of these panels may not even need to be imported abroad, because people here can not start developing it and designing some of the materials that are going to be used, so that instead of importing some of these materials that will add increase to the cost of the electricity prices, then some of these materials can be developed here and fabricated here in Nigeria. So it's something that needs to be worked on, and that's why I mentioned that regulatory agencies should be able to sit up and do their job at this time around, not that the act are signing to law. All right, thank you Martin. Natural assemblies should play a vital role, especially in the terms of oversight functions. And so that those who are coming to run these industries are those who have the capacity, are those who have the finance to be able to do that, and that will equally help to improve the industry. All right, thank you so much. So we should allow it this way, that if the people that are coming in may have the requisite properties to do that. All right, we must say a very big thank you to you, Martin, we are actually out of time, but the insights that you have provided on the show is actually very, very wonderful and we do appreciate all of them. I have been speaking with the president, the national president of NUEE, that's the National Union of Electricity Employees and we've been looking at the electricity out of 2023. Many thanks once again, Martin Ozaegu. Thank you very much for having me. It is indeed a pleasure, and that's the size of the show for today. I'll leave you with the details of this feature on tackling unemployment. And I'll see you again tomorrow. My name is Justin Akadone, bye for now. The nation's higher educational institutions equate graduates with hard skills while neglecting their development of employability skills, which are core for transitioning into the labor market as well as for workplace production.