By Sola Omoniyi
Ninety nine years after the opening of Ijora power plant, the document showing the opening ceremony surface.
2023 will makes it 100 years of the power station. It was inaugurated in 1923
According to the document obtained by BLACKBOXNIGERIA it reads;
” The Power Station At Ijora
Through the kindless of Mr. Peet, the director of Public Works, Nigeria, several gentlemen were invited to meet His Honour Lt. Colonel Moorhouse, C.M.G., D.S,O., Lt. Governor, Southern Province of Nigeria, who was at Ijora on Wednesday last on a tour of inspection of the New Power Station. Amongst those prosent were Mr. Wooley, Post master General of Nigerian, The Hon. L.A. Areber, Dr. Ubasa, Erie O. Moore, Kitoyi Ajesa, Mr. A. V. Hodder, President, J.agos Chamber of Commerce, Mesars S. G. Sawyer, David A. Taylor and M. Alayomi. The visitors were taken over the Power Station by Mr Pickworth, the Resident Engineer; when a minute inspection of the magnificent Boilers, Engines and Switchboards took place.
‘The visitors were then taken over to the splendid workshops in course of erection for the Public Works Department, where up to-date machineries for sawing and planning ‘wood were seen at work. A large piece of Mahogany’ Log was cut through in the visitor’s presence.
Mr. H. F. Peet, the Director of Public Works is to be congratulated on the erection of the Power Station at Ijora”
The Ijora Power Station at Ijora Olopa is one of the oldest power facilities in Nigeria
The Ijora Power Station was inaugurated in 1923. It was the major source of electricity supply to Lagos and its environs during the colonial period.
The power plant had a capacity for generating about 20 megawatts (Mw) of electricity from steam turbines and coal-fired boilers.
Ijora power plant was inaugurted by Queen Elizabeth II of England when she visited Nigeria in 1956. The third stage of construction in the 1960s added 30.2 megawatts of electricity to take the installed capacity of the station to 142 megawatts.
The fourth phase of development at the station witnessed the addition of three new gas turbines in 1978, each with a capacity of 20megawatts.
