A recent video circulated online claims that Nigeria provides Ghana with electricity. It added that Ghana tops the list of 10 countries with uninterrupted power supply but got its electricity from Nigeria.
The video was accompanied by the caption, “What a pity!” Nigeria is not in these 10 countdown countries. The number one will shock you.
This drew a comment like “Ghana gets most of its electricity from Nigeria, yet Nigeria is not on the first 10.”
However, a fact check done by Dailly Trust discovered that the claim that Nigeria is providing electricity to Ghana is false.
Ghana is among those that have a stable power supply in Africa. It buys gas from Nigeria, which is in turn converted to electricity by its power plants. This transaction only makes up 25 per cent of its source of power.
The report added that despite Nigeria having an abundance of gas to enable it to generate electricity, the ability to distribute power due to infrastructural and financial constraints has led to the utilisation of one-third of its generation capacity as 4500 megawatt of electricity is consumed daily from the 13,000megawatt generation capacity it has.
Nigeria’s situation often takes a comical trajectory with the country supplying some of its neighbours’ electricity. This sounds ironic as the country that is yet to satisfy its appetite is magnanimous to give out to other countries a sought-after commodity.
A report by Stears and Sterling stated that Nigeria spent $14 billion to fuel generators to provide alternative energy; and to the chagrin of many, the country provides electricity to some of its smaller neighbours.
Ghana has an abundant supply of electricity it exports. Recently, the Head of the Generation and Transmission Unit, Ministry of Energy, Hanson Monney, said the country was willing to sell the commodity to Nigeria to meet its energy requirements.
It is said that Nigeria has the highest deficit in Africa with 90million people lacking access to it.
According to Sule Abdulaziz, the managing director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Nigeria, exports electricity to three countries comprising Niger, Benin and Togo under a country-to-country arrangement.
Abdulaziz, who is also the chairman, Executive Board of West African Power Pool (WAPP), said the move enabled the federal government more foreign exchange for national development.
In 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stated that Nigeria earned $155.56m from electricity exportation.
