Nigeria, the giant of Africa, was conspicuously absent as African leaders gathered in St Petersburg, Russia, to discuss ways Nuclear power can help solve the continent’s perennial energy crisis despite global out cry against Russia on its unprovoked war against Ukraine and subsequent sanction against it. Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin told the president of the African Union during a meeting shown on state television that Russia was counting on the African Union obtaining full membership of the Group of 20 nations, comprising most of the world’s largest economies, in September. However, representatives of other countries present, unanimously agreed that the continent has a better option in nuclear energy against the prevalent hydro power source, to light up Africa again. They also agreed that the continent needs regional co-operation to pursue aggressive reformation of their different power sectors with nuclear energy. The positions were taken at a session: “Nuclear technologies for the development of African continent” at the ongoing Russia-Africa Economic Forum in St Petersburg Russia.
Panelists to the session who reached the conclusion, included Alexey Likhachev, Director General, State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM; Ibrahim Uwizeye, Minister of Hydraulics, Energy and Mining of the Republic of Burundi; Doto Mashaka Biteko, Minister of Minerals of Tanzania; Zhemu Soda, Minister of Energy and Power Development of Zimbabwe; Amged El-Wakeel, Chairman of the Board, Nuclear Power Plants Authority of Egypt; Fidele Ndahayo, Chief Executive Officer, Rwanda Atomic Energy Board; and Princess Mthombeni, Founder, Africa4Nuclear; Nuclear Communication and Technology Specialist of South Africa. Asked why Nigeria was not invited to such important discussion, considering the country’s precarious energy situation, organisers of the event said the relevant agencies did not just respond to the call. The leaders took turns to present their level of power efficiency and x-rayed how nuclear energy can engender wealth creation, energy efficiency, technology sovereignty and advanced medicine.
According to El Wakeel, Nuclear energy has helped Egypt in many ways including clean water, health, Agriculture and electricity even as the country still needs to further advance its economy, using the technology. For Fidele Ndahayo, Rwanda has almost achieved universal access in electricity, but still needs nuclear energy to sustain their achievement. “We are almost 70 percent in electricity penetration. However, we are reliant on hydro power and with what we know, hydro is almost unreliable. We need nuclear energy to sustain our efforts for a longer time. Besides, small modular technologies are making waves across the world and we want to be there from the inception. We are not going to wait for other countries to develop with it while we play catch up later. We want to be there from development stage. It has potentials to develop our agriculture, health, education and technology development sectors”. What excites Biteko of Tanzania is that the country is rich in Uranium which is the conductor of the nuclear energy and the technology will help the country add to its Gross Domestic Product GDP. Uranian will foster the increase in our GDP as we want to use technology to add at least 10 percent to GDP. We are inviting everyone who wishes to be part of our growth.
” Secondly, we are thinking of how to use uranium to link our agricultural development, health, education and move our teeming youths out of the labour market and totally improve wealth and general livelihood of the people of Tanzania”, he said. For Ibrahim Uwizeye, “My country, Burundi suffers from huge deficit of electricity. For a country of more than 20 million people, less than 20 percent electricity penetration is not encouraging. Hydro power is not being able to produce sufficient megawatts of the power we need. So, we welcome Rosatom to come and invest in our country in this area. Without improving the power generation, we are not going to be able to attract industrialists in our country. Besides, like my colleague from Rwanda has said we also need to use it to attack lack of development and wealth creation in our country. But before that, we need to improve generation and that is where we need Rosatom’s nuclear power energy prowess.
Responding, Likhachev said the issue of intergovernmental cooperation resonates with Russia and the country is willing to help Africa achieve energy sufficiency. He also promised that wherever Russia enters into agreement in Africa, it will also develop programmes that will lead the country to technology sovereignty. Technically, we give every country the opportunity to have high percentage of the participation in what we are doing with them, just to give them technology sovereignty” he added. But, it was Princess Mthombeni who advised African leaders to shun wrong narratives against nuclear energy and consider it the nerve centre of every development of every countey of the world.
“In any industrialised economy, there is always different opinions on development techniques and measures. But one clear point to know is that energy remains a focal point and the nucleus of development for countries of the world. Russia is offering nuclear power which is fundamental to development in Africa. But, unfortunately, there is a lot of resistance. African leaders should ask why? Perhaps many European countries highly involved in hydro power business, using it to drive their agenda of manipulating governments in Africa are weaving up campaigns against what nuclear power can offer. This has caused apathy among mainstream media in Africa towards accepting nuclear power. So we need an alternative media to counter the narratives and consistently create virile awareness and campaign, if only to help Africa plug into what can unlock wealth creation in their economies”, she advised
