The ongoing Develop Ondo 2.0 Investment Summit, entered day two today being Tuesday 25th, July, 2023 at the Dome. Today featured plenary sections with different themes, some of the themes were developing possibilities. Where the Panels discussed on sub-topics like Powering with Alternative Energies To Stabilize and Secure The Future. The Panels talked about Energy as the right to life for every citizen in the country. According to them, Nigeria produced less power supply to meet up our consumptions in the Country and this is the problem the Gas sector aimed to solve.
In another development, the Panellists said it is important for them to be in partnership with the Federal Government in order to solve the problem of lack of energy in the Country once and for all. According to them,” government should provide an enably environment for both sectors to thrive, so that people could have energy across the board”.
They also advocated that the State should be generating their own Energy so that they could also have their own State Electricity Regulation Commission that would be in place to manage the Sector.
They said financing the electricity is a huge problem. To them, they believed that the Private Partnership Programme -PPP, is the best way to solve this problem. They also advised the state to make use of the natural resources God had provided them with, both Human and Natural resources, for the purpose of solving the electricity problem.
Similarly, the Panellists said nobody could do it for us. They believed that we first have to organize ourselves before the investors could come in.
They said we had not been doing renewable energy in commercial large quantity, as it’s important for us to build up the infrastructure base first, before passing out the Gas Pipe- line across the state . They advised the State government to ensure that vandalism of the state’s infrastructural base should be checked.
Furthermore, they said Nigeria had a lot of Gas that could serve us for the next ten years, If actually we are committed to changing the narrative in the power sector, for the betterment of Nigerians.
Mr Apera Lorwa, Country Director, FHI 360 who spoked via zoom said, the poor and vulnerable people are the ones suffering for the lack of access to energy. According to him, using sanitation economy to develop the energy sector in the state is very important. He suggested that, UN Fund would be used in investing in sanitation for the poor to access energy.
He said, $6 million set aside for sanitation economy is a huge potential that is yet to be taped using the Human waste product to generate energy for the people particularly to the people of Ondo State.
The first Panellist was anchored by Engineer Razaq Obe. The Hon. Commissioner For Energy and Mineral Resources/Chairman, Dev Ondo Planning Committee. Members are Mr Kehinde Alabi, Chief Operating Officer, Axxela Limited, Mr Seun Sulaiman, Managing Director, Siemens Energy Nigeria and Ms Chinenye Uwanaka Partner, The Firma Advisory.
The second plenary focused on Our Development Strategy, An open conversation session with the State critical MDAS/Exco Members. Anchored by Mrs Bamidele Olateju, the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Ondo State.
Each of the stake-holders used the forum to itemized the activities that their various departments had done to impact the states in the last couple of years. How they had wooed the investors to finance various Agricultural sectors and other aspects of the activities of these Ministries could not be over emphasized .
The energy access according to Engineer Razaq, said there is no need of doing rationing of energy, come next year whenever the investors were done with their plans and commitment on the subject matter. He said Gas expansion will be made use of, to change the scenario of electricity in the state for better, by the time the work is completed before the end of Akeredolu Administration.
They also talked about the security for all the home based and the Diaspora investors that might have to come into the state to invest in any sector they want to invest in. They said within the next ten years, Ondo State would be the headquarter of the Technology of innovative Capital. They said the brain in the state, would be the next resources the whole world would harvest. As we have Talents hubs across the state .
They also talked about the provision of portable water to the people of Ondo State via the Owena Dam if concluded. They also planned to control the flooding so that Farmers could have the opportunity to go to their farm without loosing their farm products and that the drainage would be freed for proper flow of the water, in order to reduce flood in the state.
