Yar’adua’s power projection on course

In the mob of hangmen, it was almost certain that even high ranking members of the ruling party particularly from the Senate would be there to prepare the noose. A couple of weeks ago that august body hauled the power minister before its committee on power and told him that the government was a failure […]

In the mob of hangmen, it was almost certain that even high ranking members of the ruling party particularly from the Senate would be there to prepare the noose. A couple of weeks ago that august body hauled the power minister before its committee on power and told him that the government was a failure as far as the 6,000 MW deal with Nigerians was concerned. Led by its chairman, Nicholas Ugbane, the senator who recently returned from a long spell in detention, having been remanded for allegedly stealing funds meant for rural electrification, the legislators advised Babalola for effect to go and turn in his resignation.

The legislators received unsolicited support from the Corps- Marshall General of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Osita Chidoka, a few days later when he declared that the several awards being showered on government officials were dubious because the administration was under performing. “We have promised light, where is the light? We have promised water where is the water? “Chidoka asked a crowd of Abuja journalists egging him on.

But in the euphoria of critics, without and within, to pummel government on the alleged failure to achieve the promised generation target, certain issues have been craftily and mischievously avoided. What for instance is the status of the performance of Power Holding Company of Nigeria prior to the renewed resolved to boost generation? Has the light situation improved or has it deteriorated?  Has the present effort already terminated in gulping more scarce resources and less results like the previous attempt by the defunct administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo? Is 11 months of effort too long to achieve a result which took the previous government eight uninterrupted years to unsuccessfully deal with?

The facts on the ground indicate that at the commencement of government’s current effort to increase generation capacity to 6000 MW the total available capacity was 3,984 MW with actual generation limited to 2300 MW. This was the state of power in Nigeria when the Yar’adua government came on board. Of course, over $10billion had gone into the efforts to revive the sector. Deciding that throwing money at the problem would not resolve the enormous challenges, President Yar’adua decided on an audit to determine the state of the sector and what was required to fix it. That audit yielded ample results within weeks but there was a major obstacle to the strategic revival plan of the President: funding. This was created by a combination of two issues that required political resolution. First, the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission under the leadership of Dr Hamman Tukur had sustained an order from the Federal High Court, restraining the Federal Government from using the Excess Crude Account to fund the sector, particularly the National Integrated Power Projects. Secondly, the state governors who had looked the other way while President Obasanjo used the account to fund the projects regained their guts and indicated their disapproval of its use to finance the sector. As it turned out it took the Federal Government 18 months to resolve the logjam.

The resolution took such a long time because it was political in nature and required compliance with the provisions of the constitution. The funds were to come from the Consolidated Funds of the Federation and required appropriation of a special kind that needed the approval of the Houses of Assembly of the 36 states of the federation. This approach, though inconvenient, hallmarked President Yar’adua’s commitment to strict adherence to due process and respect for rule according to law.

With the initial political challenges resolved the administration hit the ground running practically by February 2009 and by the middle of December, the government had harvested a generation capacity of 5,400MW. The current transmission capacity at 330KV  is  6,848MVA while at 132 KV is 8,275MVA, meaning if actual generation of the available 5,400MW is attained today every single watt can be evacuated and delivered to electricity consumers. Now, in spite of the constraint of gas supply needed to power the thermal plants which constitute more than 80 per cent of the generators, government efforts yielded up to 3,770MW in the middle of December before it dropped again following the rehabilitation work of Shell’s Escravos gas pipeline which is the main supply line to Sapele and Egbin power stations.

We do not claim that Eldorado has been attained in the power sector yet neither can we seriously claim that the increase in the number of hours of power supply being enjoyed in so many locations across the country is enjoyed everywhere. But it will be equally dishonest to harass the present administration on the basis of having failed to achieve a set number, when we cannot even remember the last time we have had it better than this.

Of course we do understand the politics of it. Opposition politicians who had previously been in government at the highest level without a clue to the problem that had defied resolution for upwards of 30 years have joined the bandwagon in a vain attempt to demonise the Yar’adua administration. Yet we know that whatever had been attained by this administration had been done in 11 months. Opposition politicians and their media allies deny that efforts matter and insist that an increase in available capacity by about 1,500MW within the short period is not commendable. They deny the gruesome impact of the unrest in the Niger Delta on power generation and pretend that steps taken by President Yar’adua to end that decade of fatal crisis in the region have no bearing whatsoever on the relative improvement we have achieved in the sector. They deny that the 6,000MW is part of a larger plan from a projection of 10,000MW. They deny that most of the National Integrated Power Projects which would help to shore up the generation and distribution capacity are 90% completed and that this too was achieved simultaneously with the 5,400MW that is now available for evacuation.

Adebiyi, special assistant (political) to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, writes from Abuja