The 2.7 trillion Naira abracadabra

The mystery persists. So does the embarrassment; so does the shame. And we are left in the dark and in darkness. The speaker of the House of Representatives, the honourable Yakubu Dogara, said a couple months ago that our country has blown some 2.7 trillion Naira so far on electricity since 2009 so we may have light. But we have darkness 24/7. It is no small mystery that the more money we spend in our search of light, the less light we see. Abracadabra.

It is no small shame either that other African countries, poor and less developed than ours, have moved on. Their citizens no longer depend on candles and bush lamps, the veritable accoutrements of a nation caught up in the time warp of confused development paradigm.

No one has told us why this mystery of the more money we spend, the poorer the returns persists. I do not pretend not to know the standard official explanation to this mystery. Oh, yes, they tell us often that power generation drops for lack of fuel or low water level in the dams. One good excuse has dropped out of this litany of explanations that explain nothing but only deepen the mystery. The snake no longer takes the blame for unwisely wrapping itself around a turbine at the Kainji dam and causing damage to the turbine. One problem solved, obviously.

It seems to me that the many attempted solutions to the problem of electricity generation and distribution have coalesced into a bigger problem. We are thus the worse for it. Part of the mystery.

Some radical steps were taken during the Obasanjo administration to move us out of darkness into the light like other nations. Just to ensure that we did not have to carry the curse of past failures into the future, the administration’s first step was to make NEPA history. It ceased to be. From its ashes rose Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN. I think the wisdom in this step was that if our children stop shouting NEPA!! each time the light goes off, it means there is light 24/7. Try shouting Power Holding Company of Nigeria or PHCN, and see how far you can go.

Then the administration felt that one giant PHCN, like the old NEPA, was a behemoth inconsistent with the current development wisdom. It unbundled PHCN into smaller, private and independent companies with one group of companies to generate power and the other group of companies to distribute it. A sensible division of labour. The distribution companies are saddled with the unfortunate acronym of disco, as in what young people do at weekends of enjoyment.

The smaller companies were supposed to be efficient in power generation and distribution. We have had not much luck here. Well, at least, there is one fine innovation: a long whistle sounds each time light is coming to our neighbourhoods. It may last for five minutes or ten. If you are lucky, it may go on for one hour. And then for days, you hear no whistle and you get no light. We are in the lurch. It is not a comfortable place to be when all round you is inky darkness.

I am sure you must have noticed the plus and minus in our power generation capacity. Each time the power generation hits its embarrassing peak of 4,000 megawatts, we instantly lose half of that to lack of fuel and other well-oiled excuses. Abracadabra.

Mr. Babatunde Fashiola, the former governor of Lagos State, who, I believe, was, to use the familiar expression, a performing governor, is the man President Muhammadu Buhari has saddled with the electricity problem. I believe it is a challenge he is not incapable of meeting. I am sorry to say he is faced with the kind of problem that tends to overwhelm performers like him. I hope he proves the exception.

Where is his starting point? It seems to me that the private power generation and distribution companies came into the business quite ill-prepared for what they were taking on. They smelt money - and they went for it. Most of them had no money; the government had to lend them a helping hand to ensure the success of its new energy policy. The drop of water here got lost in the ocean.

One major problem here is that the distribution lines were laid when Methuselah was still in his diapers. I do not think Fashola needs consultants to convince him they have become rickety and virtually outdated in modern energy technology. If power generation improves, the full evacuation and distribution of the power generated, using these outdated distribution lines, would be difficult if not impossible. It is to avoid the collapse of the system that we are helplessly thankful for the fitful rationing of energy by the distribution companies. We should be grateful for small mercies.

Perhaps, the nastiest of the problems facing Fashola is the eternal presence of generator merchants. Well, it would be fair to acknowledge them because most of us depend on generators in our offices and in our homes. They are so good at this business that anyone can find a generator to fit his pocket. But they have constituted themselves into a powerful cartel working for their pockets and against our national interests. They have the reach and the capacity to impair the capacity of the energy generation and distribution companies. No government and, certainly, no energy minister, so far as I know, has ever attempted to deal with them by banning the importation of generators from even other third world countries.

It is such a great pity that even other developing countries, aware of our energy problems, exploit them by coupling substandard generators and exporting them to us. The energy field teams with a variety of energy merchants. To generator importers, add the importers and the vendors of inverters and solar power panels. Any improvements in our power generation and distribution would be a direct, and I would imagine, unfriendly, assault on their lucrative means of livelihood. They would defend that to death, if need be.

My commiseration, honourable minister, Babatunde Fashola.