Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, opened up, saying the level of energy poverty in Africa is frightening, amidst its huge petroleum and gas resources available on the continent. To this end, he has charged the Chief Executive Officers of African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) to evolve a strategic and sustainable blueprint to solve the energy insufficiency nightmare in the shortest possible time. Sylva gave the charge in Abuja on Wednesday at a meeting with the APPO member countries’ National Oil and Gas Companies (NOCs) hosted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC). Sylva said: “We urgently need to plan for our energy future. Our goal should be energy sufficiency in order to ensure energy security, end the ravaging energy poverty in the continent and drive the continent’s overdue economic breakthrough. “It is unacceptable in this modern age that 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity, and 900 million have no access to clean cooking fuel. Our imminent mission should be to rescue this vast number of our people from this grip of unjustifiable abject energy poverty”.
