The Power debate: amidst talks and reality

The importance of this sector made previous administrations to inaugurate for instance, the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) initiated by the erstwhile government of General Obasanjo which was a good idea. Yar’ adua regarded power as priority number one on his administration’s Seven-Point agenda.  Hence, if this kind of priority was put into power supply, […]

The importance of this sector made previous administrations to inaugurate for instance, the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) initiated by the erstwhile government of General Obasanjo which was a good idea. Yar’ adua regarded power as priority number one on his administration’s Seven-Point agenda.  Hence, if this kind of priority was put into power supply, why the incessant outages?

The challenge posed by the erratic and epileptic nature of power supply to both the national economy and the average Nigerian cannot be overemphasized. The last decade has witnessed drastic power retrogression from what was obtainable. The reasons for this include: population growth, moribund power installations and or infrastructures, lack of adequate and workable plan. But, the mother of all reasons, the foremost reason remains of course  corruption that has festered the power sector to the point of blindness.

Irrespective of the size of the generator, almost every home has one in Nigeria. At least the Chinese Tiger, “I pass my neighbour”, that is sold for N10-12, 000.00 is the most popular. This is not to mention the health hazard associated with the use of these machines in most of our poorly ventilated homes. The clusters of generators in some compounds blasting away incessantly with the smoke rending the air are the common phenomenon that accustom failure of the power sector.

At this point, the ordinary Nigerian has come to resign to fate believing that being a Nigeria is a curse, their greatest error and undoing. The truth remains that no one can decide his country of birth as no one can decide the parents that would give birth to him – the more reason why the average Nigerian should stop blaming himself for ever being a citizen of a country like this. One wonders why the power issue has been politicized and made nonsense to the point that everything looks so dismal. Does it mean the successive governments have failed to do something about an issue this germane to the economic development of the nation, its social stability and the well being of the people?  These questions simply beg for answers to be able to put to rest some of the inexplicable scenario created by this problem. The billions of dollars earmarked for this project by past administrations has not salvaged industries from folding up while some are relocating to neighbouring countries for production. It is indeed a big blow on the democratic face of Nigeria.

The past military administrations have been blamed enough for failing in governance and plunging the country into an unwholesome, worrisome state of affairs. But it has been a while now since the advent of democracy, which is already over a decade old. So, living in the past and blaming everything on the error and mistakes of past leaders has still not been able to chart the way forward for the country, especially on the issue of power. Where are all the billions voted for power?

As much as this piece is not poised to supply answers to that particular question, there is need for all hands to be on deck to support the reforms embarked upon by our government. A discourse on the reforms will propel public debate which in-turn will hopefully generate enough ideas that will make way for a laudable power reform.  The experience of countries that had at some point been in this kind of energy debacle would serve a good ground for proper research. The reform ought to receive all attention. Chile had this experience in spite of its diminutive size compared to Nigeria but they got it right eventually. India with a larger population had power reforms that got the attention of the whole country and with time led to their success story.

Imohiosen writes from [email protected]