Nigerian power sector: Opportunities and threats

“An underdeveloped country” “Everybody knows an underdeveloped country when he sees one. It is a country characterised by poverty, with beggars in the cities, and villagers eking out a bare subsistence in the rural areas.

A country lacking in factories of its own, usually with inadequate supplies of power and light.

It usually has insufficient roads and railroads, insufficient social services, infrastructure and poor communications.

It has few standard hospitals and fewer reputable institutions of higher learning. Most of its people cannot read or write.

In spite of the prevailing abject poverty of the people, it may have isolated islands of wealth, with a few persons (1% or less) living in “Embarrassing Luxury””

While Lolu was delivering his thought-provoking lecture, information technology was able to provide us with a live feed of what Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa was saying (real time!!) on the same subject: “POWER” at the “CBN Going for Growth Consultative Roundtable” hosted by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwing Emefiele (it is not true that he is now an Alhaji!! That is fake news.) at the George Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos which is only a short distance from here. While the Governor’s theme was: “Going for Growth”

Alhaji Aliko went straight to the heart of the matter:

“How do you have economic growth without power? So, no power, no growth because without power there can’t be growth.

Egypt increased its electricity by 10 gigawatts, which is equivalent to 10,000 megawatts in 18 months.

In Nigeria, we have been struggling for 18 years without adding 1,000 megawatts and we have spent about three times above Egypt, why?... I think we all need to be concerned about that.

Government needs to encourage non-oil sector growth rather than depending on proceeds from crude oil to pay salaries.

Proceeds from crude oil sale should be for major investment in the country.... no business will thrive with business owners generating power themselves.”

I have every reason to believe that Alhaji Aliko subscribes to Thomas Edison’s credo: “Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.”

We can only speculate that if Aliko had attended King’s College, he would have caught up with Bill Gates of Microsoft as the second richest man in the world. Of course, if he had boarded in Harman’s House, he would long ago have surpassed Jeff Bezos of Amazon as the richest man in the world.

What may not be known to all and sundry is that one of my classmates in the Sixth Form was from the North. He had three scholarships simultaneously – one was from his Local Government Council; the second one was from the Northern State Government; while the third one was from the Federal Government of Nigeria. His real name was Olowo (Rich man) but we preferred to call him Alhaji Too Much Money. He confided in some of us that even before he joined us, he was already looking after two wives back home!! For him, writing love letters to girls at Queen’s College, Methodist Girls School or Holy Child College was a complete waste of his time.

While we are still pondering on the genius/perspiration equation, I am tempted to share with you glorious confirmation of the triumph of will over obstacles. I am not at liberty to disclose the surname of the central character. It is sufficient that his first name is Julius and the middle name is Ayo.

He belonged to Mckee-wright’s House and he really fancied himself as a footballer. Unfortunately, even while he was in the Sixth Form, he was consigned to the Second Eleven. He refused to be discouraged.

Let us flash back to 1958. For almost eight straight years, King’s College was trounced annually by St. Gregory’s College in football. Hence, it was a foregone conclusion that the same result would recur. To make matters worse, the best player in the King’s College line up (Left half-back) suffered an injury on the eve of the match. When Julius Ayo who played