What I learnt from my trip to Egypt – Peter Obi

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has unveiled his plans to apply the knowledge gathered from his trip to Egypt if elected as Nigeria’s President in 2023.

Recall that Obi on June 14 embarked on a three-day trip to Egypt where he understudied the country’s power, education, planning and finance sectors.

The LP presidential candidate was hailed by his supporters for embarking on the journey, saying it was too late to make such moves.

But Obi during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, shared some of the lessons learnt from the visit to Egypt.

The presidential hopeful said South Africa and Egypt each produce over 50,000 megawatts of electricity, despite not being as populated as Nigeria.
Obi noted that Africa’s most populous country has the ability to generate, transmit and distribute 15,000 megawatts of electricity within a four-year period for any serious government.

He said, “I go to where people have done the right thing to learn. Egypt, Vietnam and India have deployed the fastest electricity programme in the past five years,” he said.

“The experience of Egypt I decided to go and learn. I visited the power plant to see what they were able to do within those five years. I visited the company that executed the project, had a very useful meeting, and visited the Power Holding Company of Egypt and other agencies involved to learn what they did.

“Egypt moved their power generation, transmission and distribution from about 20,000 to over 55,000 (megawatt of electricity) today within five years. In a country like ours of 200 million people generating only about 4,000 megawatts when the second biggest economy in Africa – South Africa – is generating over 50,000 and Egypt is generating over 50,000.”