Aso Villa Reads for 29/4/2019
Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has restored normal bulk transmission of electricity to its Apo transmission substation after fire destroyed one of its 45MVA 132/33kV power transformers on Sunday. The burnt 45MVA 132/33kv power transformer feeds electricity to Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) 33kV feeders”. According to This Day, “TCN’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, in a statement on Monday said the fire was put off by the combined efforts of the Federal, FCT and NNPC fire service. She, however, said it was still early for TCN to determine if the burnt transformer could be salvaged. Mbah said that the fire resulted from a direct fault from one of AEDC’s 33kV feeders, which had a history of incessant tripping, noting that the 33kV lacked protection. She said TCN was equally investigating the possibility of transformer protection failure on its 45MVA power transformer. “The 33kV feeder H13 circuit breaker and current transformer exploded while the 33kV outgoing transformer snapped causing the fire,’’ Mbah said. She, however, said the Apo transmission substation has N-I redundancy and as such, power supply to all the areas that take supply from the substation through AEDC would not be affected by the incident.”
The Federal Government has promised “to provide support for the Nigerian Air Force to produce the first made in Nigeria aircraft. Also, the Nigerian Navy has said it discovered an unmanned, floating metal barge and wooded boat in Bolo Creek laded with 900,000 litres of stolen crude oil. Speaking at an exhibition event of local technology to mark the 55th anniversary celebration of the Nigerian Air Force, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, called for more collaboration and partnership in order to make the military a self-reliant institution. “I recollect that in February 2018, the Nigerian Air Force was able to induct into the service, an indigenous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. I am equally aware of the efforts in collaboration with other partners to produce the first ever made in Nigeria aircraft at the Air Force Research and Development Centre in Kaduna. “I also took particular interest in the recent rehabilitation of the machine tools workshops at Nigerian Air Force Base, Makurdi and 631 Aircraft Maintenance Depot Ikeja by the Nigerian Air Force, in collaboration with Oshogbo Machine Tools and the University of Maiduguri. Without any doubts, such research and development initiatives are critical to the service as well as to the country”, he said.” This Day reports.
“The total amount of electricity that was available for distribution across Nigeria at the weekend was up by 349.97 megawatts (MW) after the drop in power generation caused by the disruption of gas supply to the power plants, records from the Office of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, have shown. The report from the Advisory Power Team in Osinbajo’s office said that on April 27, 2019, the average energy sent out was 3,937MW, representing an increase of 349.97MW from the supply recorded on the previous day”. According to the report by This Day, “on April 26, 2019, average energy sent out was 3,587MW, down by 343.02MW. The drop in power generation followed a disclosure last Friday by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) that four power generation companies (Gencos) were unable to generate electricity to the national grid due to gas supply challenges. The TCN had said in a statement from its General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah, that the national grid was experiencing reduced power generation due mainly to emergency maintenance by the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) of its gas pipeline supplying gas to Egbin, Omotosho, Olorunsogo and Paras Power Stations. It explained that this was reportedly caused by leakage discovered on the Escravos-Lagos Pipeline System, necessitating the total shutdown of the four power generating plants on April 25, 2019. However, on Saturday, records showed that 2,382.50MW of electricity was not generated due to unavailability of gas, while 227.5MW was not generated due to unavailability of transmission infrastructure.”
“The federal government has disclosed that it is set to take delivery of the first batch of 10 coaches, out of the 64 coaches expected from China in June 2019, to reduce the congestion at the Abuja-Kaduna rail line. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, made this known, Monday after leading a delegation to China to inspect the pace of work at the Chinese Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Tangshan Company Ltd. A statement by the Director of Press, Ministry of Transportation, Muhammad Idris, in Abuja, said that the minister requested that 10 coaches be delivered to Nigeria latest June to relieve the burden on the Abuja-Kaduna line as well as the Lagos-Ibadan line which will soon be ready. According to him, “We need coaches by June latest. We need coaches that can carry men from one point to another and we need a minimum of 10 coaches now out of the 64. “I requested 10 coaches now because we need to improve on Kaduna-Abuja line. If the 10 do not come, there is nothing I can do but it has to come because they have to manufacture for us to use in Kaduna-Abuja and again, Lagos- Ibadan will soon be ready. We also have to ensure that we get coaches that we can be using, pending when they finish the construction of the 64 coaches.”” This is according to This Day.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued licenses to five new banks, according to three banking sources familiar with the matter, who spoke to BusinessDay. Sources say the CBN is being driven by the need to attract new investments into the sector and serve the country’s over 50 million unbanked and under-banked people, even as current banks have struggle to grow loan books since an economic slump in 2016 caused bad loans to surge. The sources say the bank plan to begin operations before August, could only give specific details on two of them. One of the new banks “Globus” is said to spearhead by Elias Igbinakenzua, a former Executive Director at a Tier One bank.”
