The Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Chief Godswill Akpabio, has called for the full unbundling of the government at the centre in the running of the country in order to give more responsibility to the states and the local governments for effective governance.
Akpabio made the call while speaking at the Village Square meeting organised by the Business Hallmark newspaper in Lagos State.
He specifically mentioned the need to unbundle the Power Holding Company of Nigeria for efficiency.
He said: “The best thing that would happen to this county is to unbundle the power sector.
“Let us allow corporate organisations and states that have the capability and ability to go into either generation, transmission and distribution in the power sector.
“What has happened in the last 10 years is that the Federal Government gave out licence for generation but made transmission and distribution the exclusive prerogative of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
“Let us allow states and private companies to into the three sectors.”
Akpabio stated further. “What the Federal Government should do as far as the issue of power is concerned is to act as regulator and if this is done, we would in no distance achieve what has so far been achieved in the telecommunication sector.
“Initially, NITEL was the sole provider of telecommunication services.
“I was involved in the telecommunication sector and when we asked them to even allow us to have some interconnectivity but they said they had not the backbone to do that but with the coming into the sector by the private sector, we can now boast of over 80 million lines, as compared to the 700,000 NITEL lines.’
“There is also the need to create more distribution companies and even up to 36 and those states that can run a 24-hour power supply can do that and those states that cannot run that or do not have the industries can do it as social service to the people if the governor has the interest and love of his people at heart.”