Nigeria has some of the brightest minds in the world, with most of them either born and bred in the country or in the Diaspora doing well in most countries of the world. Surprisingly, over six decades after Nigeria’s independence, the country constantly remains under the spell of epileptic power supply and total darkness. Lamentably, with the several billions of dollars successive administrations had injected into the power sector, the nation still grapples with the worse power crisis ever, JOHNMARK UKOKO writes.
From the days of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) to the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), Power Holden Company of Nigeria ( PHCN) and the current unburdened power sector under the Transmission Company of Nigeria ( TCN), Generating Companies of Nigeria ( GenCos) and Distribution Companies of Nigeria ( DisCos), the story remains the same and has even become worse.
Nigerians have had to grapple with epileptic power supply for several years, leading to the death of many Nigerians either during operation in hospitals as a result of power outage or in firms that rely on uninterrupted power supply only to be disappointed by public power cut and many local manufacturing firms that had to shut down their plants due to lack of electricity or had to relocate to the neighbouring countries where stable power supply is guaranteed.
In the current political dispensation, successive administrations have injected huge sums of money into the power sector, but Nigerians and the business sector wriggle under constant collapse of the national grid, thereby leaving Nigerians and the businesses without public power supply.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was reported to have spent $16 billion on the power sector, without commensurate impact to the extent that at the twilight of his administration, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Power, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, who represents Aniocha Federal Constituency of Delta State, wondered where the $16 billion went.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan administration also spent several billions of dollars in the country’s comatose power sector and at the end of his administration, power generation stood at a mere 5,000 megawatts.
Brilliant minds like the late Bola Ige, Prof. Bartholomew Nnaji and other great Nigerians were appointed as ministers of power under President Obasanjo, the late former President Umaru Yar’Dua and Jonathan without much improvement in the sector.
When President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration assumed office, with his change mantra, he promised to fixed the country’s troubled power sector once and for all and to fulfill his pledge, Buhari appointed former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola as Minister of Housing, Works and Power with a view to overcoming the country’s perennial power challenges.
Four years after, in the saddle, the story was the same, it was one national grid collapse after another news that Nigerians were told by Fashola, prompting President Buhari to replace Fashola with Saleh Mamman.
When the former Lagos State governor was removed from the power sector, many Nigerians hailed the move, based on the fact that Fashola is a lawyer and as such is novice in the power sector, which ordinarily should be the turf of electrical and mechanical engineers.
They described Mamman’s appointment as “a round peg in a round hole,” but two and half years after, President Buhari sacked Mamman over poor performance, as his tenure witnessed several collapses of the national grid like his other colleagues, who held sway before him.
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Mamman was sacked in September 2021 and was replaced immediately by Abubakar Aliyu, who was before his redeployment, Minister of State for Works and Housing.
At his resumption of office, Aliyu promised to turn the fortunes of the power sector around saying: “Nigeria was in Slumber for over 30 years until President Buhari took over in 2015.”
He said due to the power sector reforms embarked upon by the Buhari administration, foreigners are now willing to invest in the sector.
Speaking earlier in the year at the Nigeria international partnership forum in Paris, France, he said the government was wooing foreigners to invest in the sector, just as he showcased all the policies and practical steps the government had taken to attract foreign investors into the sector.
But in spite of the promises, the country had witnessed collapse of the national grid four times this year alone and with each collapse, the entire country had been thrown into total darkness for days.
Most Nigerians have, therefore, insisted that Aliyu like Mamman, Fashola and all the Minister of Power beginning from the late Ige hadfailed to delivered on the promises they made to Nigerians.
Speaking to The Trumpet on why the country had been unable to fix its power sector challenges, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, blamed the sector’s challenges on policies and political interference.
He said the power sector reforms had not adequately addressed the challenges and delivered the desired outcomes, while citizens expectations remain largely unmet, adding that the privatisation of the power sector had failed and that the constant collapse of the national grid had become an embarrassment to the country.
“The entire experience in the power sector has given privatisation a bad name. There are issues of due diligence, technical capacity, financial capacity, political interference, metering issues and other challenges,” he lamented.
Yusuf, who blamed the DisCos owners for arbitrary billing and their failure to provide Nigerians prepaid meters, insisted that they were responsible for payment defaults by many Nigerians, adding that electricity theft, technical losses and cost reflective tariff were some of the issues hampering the growth of the sector.
He also raised concerns about the capacity of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc to effectively play its role of providing liquidity to support the country’s electricity supply chain.
Yusuf raised the issue of scarcity of gas to supply for power generation, adding that there was the need for more holistic approach to the multiple challenges facing the country’s power sector.
On the effects of the constant failure of the national grid, Managing Director of Liberty Industries Nigeria Limited, Abuh Kamal, said he could not understand why the grid continued to crash, saying the government should sanction engineers working in the sector.
He said the constant collapse of the grid had compelled many manufacturers to relocate to neighbouring countries where stable power supply is guaranteed.
“To be candid, the Federal Government should no longer tolerate all the excuses being given by the Minister of Power. He should be fired. Not just him, but with the top engineers working in the sector. “If government comes hard at them, there will be a remarkable change in the situation. I am aware Nigeria has brilliant engineers as other professionals. So, I can’t understand why the power situation has not improved since 1999 when huge amounts had been invested in the sector,” he lamented.
Others who responded to the power crisis, said seven years into the President Buhari’s administration, the power situation has not improved.
As President Buhari asked Obasanjo a few years ago after the Elumelu Committee discovered that his (Obasanjo’s) administration pushed a whopping $16 billion into the power sector: Where is the power?
While Nigerians may not know how many billions of dollars President Buhari’s administration will spend on the sector in his eight-year tenure, till years to come, one thing is certain, Nigeria will also likely ask President Buhari in the years ahead: Where is the power?
Only time will tell if Nigeria will ever join the league of countries that enjoy uninterrupted power supply in the 21st century.
But the question many Nigerians are asking is: “How will Nigerians and businesses survive with the incessant collapse of the national grid and the high cost diesel and other petroleum products? Only time will tell.
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