Former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Alfa Belgore, has said Nigeria has the capacity to grow its power generation capacity to about 60,000 megawatt (MW) in five years, if it could efficiently utilise its vast human and material resources.

Speaking at the presentation of former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji to the public as the pioneer Director of Power Studies of the institute, Belgore who is the Chairman, Governing Council of Power Studies Centre of the International Institute for Petroleum Energy Law and Policy (IIPELP), Abuja, said that inadequate power supply in the country would be a thing of the past if the country could actually explore the wealth of experience and potentials of its citizens who have excelled in the field of power generation and supply.

"Now that the expert by world standard are coming in to take up the power sector, it is going to be a great thing.

"In five years time from today, we will be telling a different story probably instead of 4,000MW we will be having something like 60,00MW to sell to the entire African countries," he said.

The former CJN attributed the shortfall in the power generation and transmission in the country to inadequate infrastructure, which he said would continue unabated until the country changes its lukewarm approach to power generation.

"Currently businesses and households that can afford it resort to using diesel generator. Since diesel is sold at world prices, the electricity generated is very expensive as high as US$0.30 per kw/h or more. The lack of electricity is by far the largest impediment to development in sub-Saharan Africa and resolving this problem will lead to large scale wealth creation and unleash the region's enormous potentials.

"In addition, the United Nations has recognised electricity as critical to the development of civil societies, with a very positive impact on the lives of women and girls," Belgore added.

He said IIPELP is concerned about the current state of affairs in the Nigerian power sector and had in pursuit of its vision, came up with the idea to establish a centre for power studies.

In his response, Nnaji said IIPELP would help concretise some of the efforts of the private sector in the power industry in order to enhance and advance it considering that Nigeria often don't have such types of institutions outside of government.

"There are several aspects that are not here in Nigeria because of the monopoly of government, therefore IIPELP will provide a platform for such private sector initiative to enhance the advocacy and complement government's effort," he stated.