By Nekpen Maureen Nwine
According to Nikola Tesla, “The day when we shall know exactly what electricity is, will chronicle an event probably greater and more important than any other recorded in the history of the human race. The time will come when the comfort, the very existence, perhaps of man, will depend upon that wonderful agent”.
Little did we know that such a time was upon us with the commissioning of the new 40MW IPP (Independent Power Plant) in Edo State, in addition to the existing 55MW plant which had been in operation in the State since 2020.
The Ossiomo Power which is dedicated to providing power to the Benin Industrial and Enterprise Park, government buildings, offices, streetlights (stretching over 200km across the Benin Metropolis), as well as local communities like Ologbo and Obayantor in Ikpoba-Okha local government area of the State, has become the toast of Edo citizens as a result of its competitive tariff, reliable power supply with an average performance of 97.5% or 22 hours per day, alongside a 100 percent metering performance.
Achieving such a feat within such a short time frame, Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company Limited, recently won the 2022 BusinessDay Next Bulls Awards in recognition of its “market leadership and pace-setting innovation.”
In a letter signed by the Publisher of BusinessDay Media Limited, Frank Aigbogun, the company was picked from a list of 150 leading private and indigenous companies, for its “innovation, brand authenticity, growth trajectory, market dominance, and most importantly, the proudly Nigerian values espoused by its leadership.”
Aigbogun noted that in making the decision, the Awards Review Committee was guided by an informal proprietary survey carried out on 500 respondents, which comprised equity analysts, retail and institutional investors, financial journalists, sectoral experts, professionals and Millennials, where seventy-five respondents identified Ossiomo Power and Infrastructure Company Ltd as a company whose stocks they would like to own and invest in, should the company ever decide to approach the market with its initial public offering (IPO).
Given the company’s track record and contributions toward attracting new businesses and investors through the development of critical infrastructure, it is worth noting and commending that only an administration piloted by a technocrat like Governor Godwin Obaseki could have mustered the willpower to evolve such a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative as the Ossiomo Power, with the aim of fast-tracking economic development and boosting enterprises in Edo State.
The real potential of electricity, according to Christopher Flavin, lies not in providing social amenities but in stimulating long-term economic development.
This has become the reality in Edo State as almost all factories and industries as well as most micro, small and medium scale enterprises depend largely on electricity for production. With Ossiomo Power gaining ground in the power sector, it is a certainty that the State’s economic well-being is secure.
