By Muhammad Amaan
The plan to provide access to affordable energy to 300 million Africans by 2030 is doable, Special Adviser to Nigeria’s President on Media and Public Communication, Mr Sunday Dare said.
The presidential aide stated this while speaking with State House correspondents on the sidelines of the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit, on Monday, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
“Access to affordable energy for 300 million people by 2030 is very ambitious, but it is also doable. And why is that? Because you have several sources beyond hydro; you have solar, wind, and the new green hydrogen.
“And then if you consider the enormous deposits of gas we have, it is time for Africa to come together to give access to affordable power to its people,” Dare said.
He said Mission 300 was supported by donors like the World Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, the African Development Bank (ADB), with funding, which would make it realisable.
According to him, the World Bank and ADB are supporting the G5 Sahel Solar Power project with funding to the tune of 10 billion dollars.
He said concerted efforts at Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit would dovetail into the financing needed to give access to affordable energy to 300 million people on the continent by 2030.
“Five years looks like really tight, but sometimes when you get the journey started, you can get that journey accelerated, and then you can get to the target.
“Nigeria is leveraging this platform to energise the sector and to show what the president is trying to do. We have the Siemens project that was initiated under the previous administration.
“We’ve seen how President Tinubu has come in with an accelerated phase of the Siemens initiative, moving it from 5,000 megawatts to a higher capacity,” he added.
Mr Dare said Nigeria had a dynamic compact initiative that would help to push the Mission 300 agenda forward.
He said President Bola Tinubu was focused on energy and had said at several times that no country could develop if it lacked the requisite energy.
He explained that part of the funding would be in the form of grants, soft loans with very low interest rates and capacity building.
“The experience and the capacity that the experts will bring and the training also matters. Right now, on the top drawer of almost all African countries is the question of energy.
“How do we generate enough energy? And there are three key areas when it comes to energy provision for people in Africa: affordability, accessibility and sustainability,” Dare said.
He said these were also the pillars of the energy policy of President Tinubu.
