THE LIGHT HOUSE OF THE NATION

Some shafts of electricity in Taraba is brightening business, writes Emmanuel Bello

Ijust got back from Jalingo, the capital city of Taraba state where I was a guest of Hon. Stephen Ibrahim Agya- the caretaker Chairman of Kurmi Local Government Area - who was given an award by the state’s youth at the weekend. Agya, also the state’s ALGON chairman, was eulogised by the youth who said he’s already outdoing his predecessors in terms of solid achievements in the less than 60 days in office. I came in at noon on Thursday and promptly checked into one of the many modest hotels springing up in Jalingo that are enhancing the hospitality sector of the economy. The first strange thing I noticed was that the air conditioners in the room were blasting at full capacity. Now, in the past, a lodger may have to endure the heat of the afternoon until the almighty generator roars to life at about seven in the evening. Apparently, the low current could not power the air conditioning system. Air conditioners were normally the exclusive preserves

of the big hotels where diesel-filled generator worked round the clock. But here I was in this small budget hotel, enjoying the facility. By midnight when I half expected that the hotel managers would turn off the generators, the AC’s were still working. By morning, the light was still there and the AC’s were still humming.

I became curious and asked a staff of the hotel if they were on generator. He smiled and said it was electricity distribution comapny. “You have not been around sir, it appears, light is very stable now” he said with a knowing smile as he sauntered off. Later that day, at my favourite barber shop, Men’s Paradise, a staff regaled me with how the current era of constant light was changing the way business was done. “I hardly buy fuel or diesel these days and this has really improved the profit base of my business. The light that is now constant for 18 hours or more each day is a strategic way this administration is helping us.”

Welcome to Taraba State’s new dispensation with light. Not to get it wrongly, it is not as if the state never had light at all but the current was habitually at the lowest levels in parts of the state. Residents of Jalingo used to just resign to fate with the low currents and endure the consistent outages. Who doesn’t know the heart breaking story of NEPA light in Nigeria? Who doesn’t marvel at the fact that Ghana once celebrated 10 years of non-interruption of light? So, yes, Taraba like the rest of country suffered in scandanlously dark silence. The cumulative effect of this was that business and social life suffered. It could be said that that the revolution to light up the state started before now but it is the new government headed by Mr. Darius Dickson Ishaku that jerked up the current megawatts. During the campaign, the governor, then a candidate, told me that he would focus on the electricity needs of the state before anything. He went

theological about it as he said “you know even the Almighty God started the creation with light when He thundered “let there be light” before He embarked on other things. I wondered if anything could have been achieved without that. In fact light came before anything and I’m convinced that light would form the basis of our rescue mission.”

In a way, the governor has been involved in jerking up the light profile of the state. As minister of power, while he superintended over the electricity project of the entire country, he still had a part of his mind trained on Taraba State. He told me how he used to take a feverish interest in knowing that the state had constant light. Coincidentally, Nigeria’s biggest hydroelectric power project of all time, the Mambilla (which, by the way, is in Taraba state), rested on his shoulders. The zest with which he pursued the project indicated that while the entire nation was his concern, the slogan charity begins at home rang true. Also in the same vein, the Kashimbilla dam-a project aimed at adding 40 megawatts to the national gridrested on him. Like Mambilla, Kashimbilla is in Taraba. Summing this up, Governor Ishaku once proclaimed Taraba as not just the nature’s gift to the nation but also the lighthouse of the nation. And in a way, many expected

that he would bring all of his experience to bear on that sector when he eventually becomes governor. Today, he hasn’t failed anyone in this regard. On assumption, he cleared a backlog owed the local NEPA office in the state. From there, the rest became history as they say. The effect too had been tremendous. Business life has been upgraded with more people spending less on diesel or fuel. Medium and small scale industrialists are starting to oil their machines for business again after a long lull. The implication for jobs creation has been tremendous as shops owners using electricity have found in a new lease of life. But it goes beyond that. Electricity has revolutionised other sectors as well: entertainment, sports, tourism, hospitality, media, information technology, health, agriculture and all the other revenue generating subdivisions. In a way, the rescue has since debuted. And it all started when light came.