Nigeria’s Epileptic Power Sector: Matters Arising by: Joseph Umoh
It is a known fact that industrialization and availability of social amenities is closely used as a measure of development, thus the classification of some nations as developed, developing and under developed.
It is also common knowledge that no nation can be classified as developed without adequate supply of infrastructural facilities aided by adequate supply of electricity and this is accountable for our slow pace of development in Nigeria with our not only poor and inadequate but epileptic power supply that is so common to developing nations like Nigeria, an assumed Giant of Africa.
The epileptic nature of power supply in Nigeria is to say the least, neither accidental nor inexplicable neither without solution. This age long issue of power supply has witnessed massive transformations which were designed to boost the power generation in the country and improve the supply of electricity, but the end result of those transforms seem to be mere change of name from its inception name of Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) to National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and now to its present name – Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
These various changes were perhaps measures implemented by various political and ruling class’ to supposedly ameliorate or ‘cure’ the epileptic nature of electricity situation in spite of the huge financial commitments on the part of successive governments into the implementation of these transformations.
It is however on record that Nigeria with her teaming population of about 140 million of the world’s estimated population of 6 billion has a total electric generation that is being consumed and generated by a city like Dollars in the United States. It has also been discovered that Kainji Dam has the potential and capacity to exceed its present utility capacity of 960 megawatts, and it is also sad to note that not all the turbine units are in operation because of the low water level in the reservoir sometimes due to drought.
Moreso, it is noteworthy to state that the same Kainji Dam that supplies Niger Republic is fairly moderately decent when compared to the erratic supply in Nigeria. As a nation, Nigeria is blessed with an abundance of sources of renewable energy like sunlight, water, wind, bio-fuel. But despite the availability of these sources and the various plans and attempts to improve the nature of electricity, several factors like corruption, theft, vandalism and sabotage have made the effectiveness of these attempts impossible.
Early efforts to solve this problem began with president Olusegun Obasanjo, who during his tenure, appointed Chief Bola Ige with the sole mandate of improving the power supply. President Obasanjo also came up with the National Power Policy in 2001 which led to the electric power reform Act of 2005 which in turn gave birth to National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) promising to deliver 10,000 megawatts of power by the end of 2007. These policies did not improve but rather worsened the epileptic nature of the power supply.
Subsequent regimes of late Musa Yar’Adua also led to a 7 point agenda; giving a topmost priority to power generation all to no avail. The present government of president Goodluck Jonathan being the path of the past, came up with road map for power supply with a mandate to dismantle PHCN and seek for collaborations with 18 private firms all in an attempt to improve power generation and supply.
Observably, the prevalent erratic supply of electricity has led to the heavy dependence of the country on generators for power supply which has attracted too, comments tagging the nation a “Generator republic” due to the prevalence of the use of generator sets ranging from the small ones to the giant industrial ones.
To really tackle the poor situation engulfing the power sector, it should be understood that the epileptic power distribution is collateral to a nexus of mishaps that run through the cardinal points of the Nigeria geographical entities in recent past. Our leader must as a matter of urgency, take a clue from this.
The power logistics is just affected by the act of economic sabotage which is a derivative of a long period of political imbroglio which has a resultant effect on all the public structures and institutions.
Thus, the issue of steady power supply cannot be treated in isolation. It is note worthy to consider other parastatals like Water Corporation which has almost gone extinct all over the nation, the case of NITEL which has been consigned to the past not to mention the Nigeria Railway Corporations, among others. It would therefore be a step in the right direction if the president would summon all stakeholders in power generation, including generator contractors and marketers to Aso Rock, and mandate that all generators in Aso Rock be dismantled and sanction a ten year imprisonment on the contactors and marketers if power fails for a second in the villa. this way, there can be a sure way to healing the epileptic power sector in our country.