News Investigators/ An electrical engineer, Toyese Oyerinde, has advised the Oyo State Government to exploit the huge deposits of marble in Igbeti, Olorunsogo Local Government Area, to generate electricity.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan, on Saturday, Mr Oyerinde said that President Bola Tinubu has significantly provided electricity for Nigerians by removing power generation from the exclusive list.
He said that the amendment of the Electricity Regulatory Act by the President has allowed states to also generate, distribute and transmit electricity.
According to him, if the over 25km land stretch of marble deposit in Igbeti town is subjected to further scrutiny, it can be used to generate electricity not only for Oyo State, but also for Nigeria.
“You see, what is called marble is just the exposure of the limestone to the atmospheric pressure and all you need to do is to break the components of the marble and remove the limestone.
“Then, combine the limestone with coal, the gas generated could be piped to the gas turbine to produce electricity.
“Also, the limestone that was broken down in the process could be used to manufacture cement and it would be of high quality,” Mr Oyerinde said.
Equally, the electrical engineer expressed sadness that waste generation had become a menace in the state rather than being a blessing.
Mr Oyerinde said that it was a well known fact that waste could be converted to generate power.
“Oyo State is next to Kano when it comes to availability of manmade dams, but they are not thinking of utilising those facilities located in Alabata in Ibadan, Okeogun and Eruwa.
“For instance, the dam at Alabata in Akinyele Local Government area of Oyo State has two million generating capacity.
“The old Western Region government of Awolowo saw the need to put a power generating system in place and built one Arstol turbine at the state Secretariat to provide electricity for Bodija and secretariat, but the project has remained abandoned till date.
“Even if the current government has done something, it has no effect yet.
“I would have expected that Gov. Makinde would generate power and ask the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) to remove the entire Old and New Bodija, which are now commercial centres, from its power distribution.
“Today, it is sad that the state government has sold most of those lands with water around them to real estate agents,” he said.
Also Nigeria’s former envoy to the Philippines, Yemi Faronbi, suggested that the country could adopt multiple approaches in solving the epileptic power problem.
Mr Faronbi argued that Philippine was able to resolve its electricity problem within four years through multiple generation approaches.
He further said that a combination of hydroelectricity, coal, gas, solar, windfarm and so on might be the permanent solution to Nigeria’s power problem.
“Many countries such as United States of America, South Africa and others still generate electricity from coal. Why can’t Nigeria?
“From what I know, Nigeria has one of the best in terms of quality and huge deposit of coal in the world because the one available in Kogi does not really smoke compared with that in Enugu.
“In addition, considering solar as a means of electricity generation is one of the easiest for Nigeria given the country’s location two to three degree from the equator.
“We have the capacity to retain about 85 per cent of our solar energy unlike Germany that has only 20 per cent retention rate.
“This means that we can begin to have solar power at least in the rural and local government areas, housing estates and so on.
“Moreover, given the kind of topography we have in northern Nigeria, we have windfarms, which could also be suitable to generate electricity.
“About six, seven years ago, Germany was generating electricity from windfarm and electricity being generated from it became so surplus that they had to start paying people to be using it.
“So, Nigeria does not have to solely rely on gas and thermal means of electricity production.
“Each of solar, windfarm, petroleum, gas, hydro means of electricity generation and so on would have areas where they could be best produced and not just relying on only one,” the elder stateman said.
Faronbi stressed the need for the government to carefully look at the capacity to transmit what is generated that is, to evacuate from the generating centre to the distributing centre.
He said that transmission of electricity should also be privatised just like generation and distribution stages for there to be stable electricity in the country.
“Our generating capacity is higher than our transmitting capacity because the old transmitting cables have not been replaced.
“It took Philippine only four years to solve their electricity problem, if we are serious, it should not take us more than that,” a broadcaster said.
NAN