Nigeria’s unending problems: The power sector

I know that we have issues in Nigeria but the worry is that the most pressing of these issues are the basic ones that are staring us straight on the face. We have failed to keep our schools afloat; our health sector has collapsed while other infrastructures such as agriculture, transportation et al are all […]

I know that we have issues in Nigeria but the worry is that the most pressing of these issues are the basic ones that are staring us straight on the face. We have failed to keep our schools afloat; our health sector has collapsed while other infrastructures such as agriculture, transportation et al are all in critical state of disrepair and hopelessness.

This series is intended to look at this national malice sectorally with a view to possibly proffer solutions even if those in charge of our destinies would not read or even get to know what the feelings may be. However, it is important that we continue to place on record what the situations are and how in our humble views they could be addressed.

Today, we are concerned with the power sector. It is no longer news that despite the colossal amount of money that has been spent in the name of the power sector, Nigerians are grappling perhaps more than ever before with the acute shortage of power. There is no power to run our daily lives talk less of sufficient power to help us do our businesses or even start industries that could support life and create employment to the teaming young people that roam the street.

Power has become so critical that even a barbing saloon or vulcanizing shop cannot operate without it. The machines to grind tomatoes and the food we eat require power that is not available. The only source of power that is hardly available and at a very expensive price is through petrol and diesel. The government just recently increased the price of petroleum to N97 per liter after a protracted battle with Nigerians.

Business activities and life are at the lowest level of development in our country. Nothing is done with ease. Everything is difficult and life is very costly while the quality is low. Despite all these glaring indicators, our government still deceives itself and the rest of us that it is piloting the nation into becoming one of the largest 20 economies in the world by 2020.

Now, let’s look at the power sector in the last thirteen years. When Obasanjo came, he made promises to the effect that within the first few years of his government, the issue of epileptic power supply in the country was going to be a thing of the past. As it were, eight years later, the level of improvement in generation that was recorded wasn’t more than a thousand megawatts.

That wasn’t just the problem; the amount of money that was expended for that output was amazing. An estimated sixteen billion US dollars was siphoned through that process and the nation is left without light and power to run itself while our ruling class in Abuja continue to revel in lies and squandering of the riches of the nation.

As God will have it, those from whose backyard the oil resources are tapped are now on the saddle and they are seriously doing justice to it. Appropriating it in a manner that the rest of us have been told time and again that we lack the moral authority to complain about. This is ridiculous!

They are telling us that by 2020, Nigeria will be one of the largest 20 economies in the world. This dream that is a lie to even those who see it being repeated on a daily basis and the implication is what we are angry with the most. How can we develop when the whole generating capacity of the country is not beyond 4,000 megawatts? That is even in the area of generation not to talk about distribution and other critical areas of transmission.

London Heathrow airport alone generates more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity. You may say that is London, an advanced economy.  In Makkah, Islam’s holiest city, the electricity that is generated around the Holy Mosque alone is about 4,000 megawatts. I don’t know what the case in the Vatican City is, but for sure what is generated must be in excess.

In South Africa with a population of few tens of millions, they are able to generate more than 40,000 megawatts of electricity. In fact just after the World Cup, an sms was going round to the effect that with just about 5 billion US dollars, they were able to build a stadia to host the tournament, improve on power generation, build several new roads and the games village amongst many other things.

In the Nigerian case, 16 billion USD wasn’t sufficient to generate even 5,000 megawatts of electricity. This is crazy! Sun City alone generates more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity. This is a special area in Johannesburg reserved for the rich and mighty. In Asokoro where the presidential villa is, million naira houses are run on generators and boreholes. What a rally!

One simple fact which this piece seeks to advance is the fact that Nigeria is doomed to continue to fail in the circumstances that it finds itself in. There is no way a nation can grow on deceit and lies. Sincerity of purpose is lacking on the part of the leadership in Abuja, and this to me is fundamental minus on the capacity to achieve any positive objective in Nigeria.

There is the need to make concerted effort to ensure that the power sector ceases to be the nation’s most vulnerable drain pipe through which our collective patrimony is siphoned for personal uses. Without power, Nigeria will not make any progress because it will be impossible to thrive in any industry no matter how small it may be.

As shown earlier, the massive unrest we see across the country is attributable partly to the failure of the power sector to accommodate unskilled and semi skilled segments of the nation’s labor force which definitely constitutes the majority in the country just as is the case in other undeveloped and even developed economies.

Power today is the lifeline of every economy and it’s the bedrock of modern societies no matter how backward they may be. Nigeria cannot be an exception and must have to get it right if we are to see an end to this pandemic social explosion that is rocking the country from both sides and every region.

I share the sentiments of those who say that Nigeria is unlikely to get things right under the current order. We must own up to the fact that so far, the national leadership has not demonstrated sufficient knowledge of not just the magnitude of the issues at hand but the strategy to get out of the woods.

Many other nationals even here in Africa are often wondering why Nigeria has failed to get it right after such a long time and despite the colossal resources that have been injected into the power sector. The problem of course is corruption. This is no longer any secret. The resolution to deal with it and start on a clean slate seem still far off the way and there is no way we can make any meaningful progress if the resolution is not made and enforced.

Without power, forget it! Nigeria cannot make it and Nigerians will not know peace. The earlier the state tries to get it right with the required seriousness, the better. If we cannot generate electricity to accommodate our barbing saloons in Nigeria, I wonder what business President Jonathan has in going to a nuclear summit in Seoul. What he should do instead is to organize lesser mortals that have failed to get electricity right in Africa to a summit on how to resolve this simple problem that has been protracted in our clime.