Hammed Shittu
11 November 2009
Ilorin — No fewer than 14 communities out of 105 communities penciled down in the first phase of electrification project in Kwara State at the cost of N1.2 billion, have been completed and connected to the national grid.
The state Commissioner for Energy, Alhaji Zakari Muhammed, who disclosed this in Ilorin at a press conference, said that the gesture was meant to reduce urban - rural migration and thereby accelerate the socio-economic growth of the rural communities.
According to him, "the state government realised the importance of energy in the socio-economic development of any society and this prompted the government to make use of the recent achievement at Ganmo power station for the benefit of the people of the state."
He said that, since the commissioning of the project in July this year, the power generation in the state has improved and the only way to extend the result to the rural towns and villages is to embark on the rural electrification projects in order to enable the rural people feel the impact of the improved power generation at Ganmo.
Muhammed added that the affected 14 communities that had their rural electrification completed span Ilorin East, Ifelodun and Oke-Ero local government councils of the state, noting that work has reached 95 per cent in 60 communities; 30 per cent in 16 communities, while work has just begun in another 14 communities because of the rain and bad weather.
He mentioned that electrification of the 105 communities, which is a joint project between the state government and the local government councils will be completed early this December.
He assured other communities in the state that are yet to be electrified to be calm because the state government will electrify all communities across the 16 local government councils before 2011.
The commissioner who called on the communities that have projects below N10 million to forward their proposals to the Ministry so that the state government can assist, stressed that no single community would be left out as Dr. Bukola Saraki was committed to distribute the dividends of democracy to the people of the state.
Muhammed therefore called on the community leaders to always project the project from vandalisation, stressing that since the project commenced they have never recorded the problem of vandals.
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