Incessant power outages
If the new round of incessant power outages across the country generated widespread public concern, the response of Minister for Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola deepened Nigerians’ despair over the issue. Reacting to the issue recently, Fashola blamed chronic power outages and the very low level of power supply in the country to vandalism of oil and gas pipelines, sabotage of critical gas plants and liquidity shortage due to lack of payment to gas suppliers for the problems. He said power supply to the national grid dropped to below 3,000 megawatts. He then advised people to change their attitude towards and stop the vandalisation of power infrastructure if the problem of incessant power shortages is to be curbed.
Fashola’s lament was corroborated by Mr Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Transcorp Group and United Bank for Africa (UBA), who described the Nigerian power sector as a “moving corpse” awaiting its final crash at any point in time. He however blamed Fashola’s ministry for the problem, saying that “the agency of government that has responsibility for making sure that the sector delivers on its potential is not doing well enough.”
Elumelu’s voice is only one of several that have highlighted the mess that runs in the nation’s power sector, whereby hardly any reform in it works. Representing the Transcorp Group which is a powerful player as owner of one generating company (Genco), his grouse was over the non-remittance of revenues by distributing companies (Discos) to the former. Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group had earlier called for drastic reforms in the power sector if progress is to be recorded. From the look of things, Fashola’s sterling past record as a performing governor of Lagos State is about to be tarnished by his tenure in the power sector, where Nigerians had expected a miracle with his coming.
The power sector has proved over the years to be the Achilles’ heel of virtually every administration in this country. While every government that comes into office projects an agenda for the sector, they all end up leaving office without even scratching the surface of the problem; that is if they do not deepen the crisis. The Obasanjo was said by its successor to have spent $16 billion in the sector “without commensurate results.” In the case of President Umaru Yar’adua, his administration promised to declare a state of emergency in the power sector but he never got to declare one. President Goodluck Jonathan on the other hand carried out major reforms, unbundled and privatised most of the power sector, but the problems of erratic power supply are still with us.
When he was appointed Power Minister, Fashola raised the hopes of Nigerians with a promise to deliver 10,000 megawatts of power by the end of this year. Rather than delivering on his mandate, he is now offering the country a dose of unhelpful laments. This is a grand anti-thesis to all that this administration stands for. Nigerians are no more in the mood for accepting ministers who weep in office instead of delivering on their assigned missions. Given the tremendous promise with which the administration came into office, it is a sad commentary that it is failing to deliver on one of the most important drivers of people’s welfare, namely steady power.
Needless to state that if the administration hopes to earn a positive rating in office it needs to brace up to the challenge of delivering steady supply of power all over the country. With over 70 million electricity power generators supplying the bulk of available power in this country, the public power supply network is actually the back up. The earlier the sector rises to take its proper place of serving as the main source of supply, the better for the country.