Ogun State governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, said yesterday that the E-mobility and Gas-Mobility programme of the state would take off in the first week of August.
The governor also said his administration would take advantage of the newly signed electricity bill that regulates the power sector by establishing a company that would generate and distribute power supply in the state.
Abiodun, who disclosed this when he received participants of the Senior Executive Course 45, Group 1, of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Jos, who came on a courtesy call in his office at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, said that his administration would focus on the provision of public utilities, including water and electricity supply.
The e-mobility and gas mobility involve the conversion of mass transit buses from petrol to gas and motorcycles (Okada) to electric.
He said: “I am proud to say that in Ogun State, we have put in measures and plans to begin an energy transition plan and we are going to start converting all our state buses to begin to run on CNG.
‘’That programme has already commenced and we are actually going to launch what we call our our E-mobility and Gas Mobility Programme sometime around the end of this month or first week in August.
“The gas mobility is that which we convert not just our buses to operate on gas, but all mass transit will begin to operate on gas and our E-mobility is a program that will make for all our motorcycles and tricycles to run on electricity.
‘’They will be battery-powered. We are going to launch that program either last week of this month or first week of next month.
“We will take the motorcycles from the riders and give them electric powered motorcycles, this program will have a cushion effect on what our masses are currently experiencing and besides that, it will begin a new phase of dispensation of clean energy which speaks to the issue of climate change.”
Governor Abiodun also disclosed that Ogun State was planning to generate its own electricity, following the signing of the 2023 Electricity Bill into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on June 9, which empowers states, companies and individuals to generate, transmit and distribute power.
He added: “We are going to take advantage of the constitutional amendment that has now removed power generation from the exclusive list and put it on the concurrent list.
“We will have our own generation company, state distribution company, and ensure that we can provide more power to our major towns and cities. Once we are able to do that, the grid can be sufficient for our small towns.’’
The governor also said his government had spent so much on the rehabilitation of water works across the state in its efforts to ensure the availability of portable water to the populace.
