Iran Press/ Africa: An unimaginable amount of money has been spent by the Federal Government to tackle the issue of electricity in the country. Recently, the administration of President Bola Ahmad Tinubu claims that the government has spent 29.3 billion Naira (17,824,661.30 Dollars) to repair the 266 electricity towers which were said damaged by vandals across the nation which resulted in the total blackout in the 19 states of the Northern parts of the country for 14 days but yet,
Citizens continue to remain in darkness, as the footage of Iran Press taken in the night in Bauchi clearly shows only some street lights and a few houses among millions that managed to afford light by using a generator.
As charging phones becomes difficult due to lack of power, many youth in the country open shops for phone charging business, where they use generators to get electricity the cost of charging a single phone is 150 Naira, for a power bank 200 while 300 Naira for charging a laptop computer.
Iran Press correspondent visited some TV and radio stations to see how the lack of electricity and the high cost of diesel in the country affect their work. Like Many media organizations that run for 24 hours serving for audience, the management of Bauchi Radio Corporation (BRC) has decided to cut down their operation hours due to a lack of power and the lingering diesel scarcity.
Umar Shira, the Director of Cooperate Affairs at Bauchi Radio Corporation who talked to Iran Press, said due to the difficulties as a result of the power collapse, they reduced the length of hours of broadcast at the BRC radio station.
In an exclusive interview with Iran Press on this situation, Engineer Dr. Saeed Yarima, an expert and also the Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi lamented the corruption in Nigeria's electricity sector which causes the perish of industries as well as small and medium enterprises.
He also suggests that the Government should implement the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Nigerian Government and the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2004, 2012, and the recent one in 2022, under which the Iranian government would help Nigeria to resolve this problem once and for all.
"The big question that I would expect from every rational Nigerian would ask is, if Nigeria is so much place as the seventh in the global raw in the oil reserve, and also ninth in the global gas reserve, why can't we use this gas to abundant in our reserve? Why do we have this repository of gas but we can't use it to generate energy? Who stops us from using this gas? Who is working behind the screen against us?"
After he narrated the false promises made by the German government that it would help Nigeria to resolve the electricity issues and the huge amount of money that the government officials of the West African country took under the pretext of solving the issue, the expert talked about the way to tackle this problem.
Engineer Saeed Yarima said "Now, myself, as pan-Africanist, and as somebody who is anti-imperial agenda, I will never advise any African country to rely on the West because of anti-imperial Anglo-American agenda that keeps to impoverishing us. I advise the Nigerian Government to revisit the MoU they had already signed with Iran."
The expert further said that Iran shows good intentions in helping African countries resolve their problems. 204
