ADELABU CALLS FOR FAST TRACKING OF PASSAGE OF BILL ON VANDALIZATION OF POWER INFRASTRUCTURE ..... Calls For Capital Punishment

Adebayo Adelabu 
Honourable Minister of Power 

"Those responsible for the acts of vandalization on the nation's power infrastructure will soon face capital punishment." Adelabu 

"The sale of scrap metals is a major cause of vandalism of critical national assets and infrastructure."

The increasing acts of vandalization being carried out on electricity infrastructure is an act of terrorism.

This was the assertion of the Honourable Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu while speaking at a news briefing organized by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to Chief Adelabu, "those responsible for the acts of vandalization on the nation's power infrastructure will soon face capital punishment.

"The sale of scrap metals is a major cause of vandalism of critical national assets and infrastructure." The Minister stated.

He argued that if the sale is criminalised, incidences of vandalism will stop, noting that "those who vandalise power infrastructure have ulterior motives and a Bill is with the National Assembly to make vandalism a capital punishment.

He therefore appealed to the National Assembly to fast-track the Bill on Capital Punishment for vandals of transmission lines.

According to him, “I am happy to let you know that we now have the full support of the National Security Adviser (NSA) with the Chief of Army Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff to provide adequate security and ensure that this line (Shiroro-Mando transmission line) is restored within a matter of days.

“Vandalism of transmission lines in Nigeria is not a new thing for us. We are all aware of the Damaturu–Kaduna line that has been vandalised several times. Even after it was fixed, a few days after, it was vandalised again.

“So, what we are appealing to every Nigerian, especially our brothers and sisters in Nigeria is to ensure that we protect this national asset, because apart from the efforts of going back and forth to fix this line, it also costs a lot of resources that otherwise could have been used for new substations for line extension and to even fix some old transformers.

“This is what we are deducing in restoring demolition of vandalised lines. The second objective of this briefing is to review all the restoration efforts that have been made and when lines will be restored to the northern part.”