Politically speaking, following the intrigues that trailed the ministerial screening resulting in the rejection of the touted preferred Minister for the power ministry, the newly-appointed Minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu, has no luxury of time but must hit the ground running in order to fix the myriad of challenges facing the power sector.

For Nigeria to achieve accelerated economic growth and development, the huge gap in the power sector has to be quickly bridged by taking effective steps to attract investible funds to the sector and significantly increasing the generation capacity from the current paltry 12,000MW.

The Minister must not be under the illusion that the task is easy as one of his predecessors, late Chief Bola Ige, thought when he boasted that he will solve the challenges in the power sector in six months.

Although the Minister is a chartered accountant by qualification, what can stand him out in the discharge of his duties in the power ministry is CHARACTER and a strong POLITICAL WILL to turn things around. There could be the back and forth argument that he is a square peg in a round hole because he is a finance person now heading a technical outfit. However, if he is determined and puts a winning team in place, he will definitely make meaningful impact in the sector.

To this end, the Minister can learn from non-technical persons like Mr. Olotu (an auditor) of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) who supervised the National Independent Power Project (NIPP) and Mr. U.G. Mohammed (an accountant) of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) whose performances surpassed those of many other technically qualified persons.

Under Mr. Olotu, not less than eight thermal power stations as well as many transmission and distribution projects were constructed.

On his part, Mr. U.G. Mohammed enforced the grid code requirement for GENCOs to place their machines on free governor control so as to respond automatically to frequency fluctuations and this enhanced the reliability and security of the system. His leadership stabilized the grid and drastically reduced the incidences of system collapses.

The new Minister should draw up workable and holistic programs that focuses on the three variables of technical, commercial/legal and political in order to take the power sector to the next level.

As an accountant, the Minister should be able to attract sufficient funds to the sector to improve existing infrastructure and expand the generation, wheeling and distribution capacities. In addition, commercial and legal disputations should be resolved for the betterment of the sector.

On the technical front, the Minister should concentrate on how to eliminate the numerous bottle-necks afflicting the sector and achieve smooth and efficient power supply delivery to Nigerians.

Last but not the least, in order to achieve success, the Minister must wield a strong political will to drive the entire process of attaining energy self-sufficiency for the country.

There is no doubt that the road will be rough and tough but if he is determined, the Minister will surely move the power sector to the height that can drive the industrialization dream of the government.