National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) has urged the President elect, Mohammadu Buhari to resist the on-going discussions between Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) and Russia’s Rosatom Corporation (RRC) to build nuclear plants in Nigeria.
It recalled the unfortunate 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, and said that the Nigeria does not have the required capacity to manage nuclear disaster for now.
The electricity employees took cognisance of the fact that Nuclear power plants are some of the most sophisticated and complex energy systems ever designed and no matter how well it is designed and engineered, it cannot be deemed failure-proof.
“Building of nuclear plants in Nigeria will no doubt subject the citizens to unavoidable risk,” the Union told President-elect through its Comrade Joe Ajaero, general secretary, Lagos on Sunday.
He said, “We urged the President elect, Mohammadu Buhari to resist the on-going discussion between NAEC and RCC to build nuclear plants in Nigeria, as the nation, for now do not have the required capacity to manage disaster that may emanate from nuclear accident.”
Lamenting that Japan even with the high level capability in terms of human and economic power, found it extremely difficult to manage the nuclear accident, which rocked the country in 2011 and led to the death of thousands of people, Ajaero said: “We cannot turn skewed-eye to the global concerns that a combination of human and mechanical error at a nuclear facility could result in significant harm to people and the environment”.
According to him, operating nuclear reactors contain large amount of radioactive fission projects which if dispersed, can pose direct radioactive hazard, contaminate soil and vegetation, and be ingested by humans and animals. Human exposure at high enough levels can cause both short term illness and longer-term death by cancer and other diseases.
He noted that the issue of unresolved problem of radioactive nuclear waste remains a big issue as Nuclear power plants typically have high capital costs compared with other power plants.
He said in Eastern Europe, a number of long established nuclear projects are struggling to find finance, notably Belene in Bulgaria and the additional reactors at Cernavoda in Romania and some potential backer have pulled out.