The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has said the 2022 Revised National Energy Policy (NEP) and National Energy Master Plan (NEMP) will impact the country’s energy sector positively.
Onu, who stated this while speaking to journalists after the document was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), said the revised policy and master plan would enable Nigeria to take full advantage of available sources of energy in the country.
He said: “Nigeria has an abundance of crude oil, fossil fuels and variants of renewable energy (solar, hydro, wind, geothermal and biomass) in commercial quantities. A good mix of all these will greatly improve the energy supply in the country.”
NEP and NEMP were developed by the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
On his part, the Director-General, ECN, Prof. Eli Bala, said the revised NEP and the NEMP approved by the Federal Government would enhance performance in the energy sector through proper coordination as the policy would provide an instrument for the coordination of the implementation of government policies.
He explained that in 1990, the Commission charged with the responsibility for strategic planning and coordination of all national energy policies, initiated a committee comprising of stakeholders in the energy sector to draft NEP, which was non-existent.
Bala explained that the draft NEP was submitted to the government in 1993 and reviewed severally by inter-ministerial committees before it was approved by the Federal Government in April 2003 and launched by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005.
He observed that arising from the 2003 NEP, a national committee was constituted in 2007, with members drawn from the relevant bodies to draft a NEMP document.
According to him, NEMP is a roadmap for the implementation of NEP that seeks to convert its strategies to actionable programmes, activities and projects with timelines.
He also said NEP serves as an omnibus umbrella energy policy that covers all energy sub-sectors and gives the Federal Government overall policy direction in the exploitation of its energy resources for national energy security and development in an environmentally sustainable manner.
