Over the years our governance system and development system and the result we have has proved that Nigeria is a country of self inflicted crises. As a result, the country has attained the status of a country of one day, one problem. In fact in the last ten years, it is abnormal to have a whole week or month without having to confront one national crisis or the other as a result of negative development that arose out of our mis-governance fall-outs.
One of the problem we’ve had to confront with over the past years and which has sort of defied solutions is problem of Energy. Better put, we have been unable to generate, transmit, distribute and manage the power system such that sixty -four years after independence we still lack adequate power system to power our homes, industries and other vital organs of daily living.
In our attempt to provide power for our country the name of the agency has gone through generic name changes from Electric Corporation of Nigeria,ECN to National Electric Power Authority,NEPA, Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN and now into three bodies namely-Transmission Company of Nigeria,TCN, Generating Company of Nigeria,Gencos and Distribution Companies of Nigeria,Discos.This was all in a bid to ensure availability of power in the country and remove the institution from being controlled by only one body. But the question on the lips of everybody is has the situation changed?.
Has the three bodies been able to provide and distribute enough power for the country. Needless to say that the Nigerian factor of inefficiency has crept into all the succeeding bodies and institution making it the biggest headache any country could have. For without power,there is neither development nor growth.
Power is the engine of development of any modern world country and its provision is a function of the government of the day.
Since its unbundling into there main bodies, it is without gainsaying that the nation has spent billions of dollars to breathe life in the Energy sector but with little to show for it but epileptic generation, transmission and distribution by all the Gencos and Discos operating in all parts of the country.The more the power sector is renamed or reconfigured the more providing light has become compounded.
For Nigeria as a country ,it is the more you spend,the less you see of reliable and adequate power supply.
During the era of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, billions of dollars was allegedly spent on fixing the Power sector.While many put it at $16 billion, Lyel Imoke, last Power Minister under the regime last month at a conference in Lokoja, Kogi state dispelled the earlier figure and put it at between $2-3 billion dollars spent by the government over which power generation has not improved from 5 .5 megawats.
Isn’t it curious that a country of 220 million is labouring to generate 6MW megawatts while South Africa of under 40 million has over 45 megawatts more than is required to power its highly developed industrial sector. Why is it that the moment the generation effort is beyond the 5.5 megawatts the national power grid system will collapse.? Is it a function of the obsolete equipment being used or the usual inefficiency that has been the lot of our public service system.
But then what is Power Grid?
An electric grid is an electrical power system network that consists of the generating plant, transformers, transmission lines, the substation,distribution lines and consumers. The Power Grid is a network meant for bringing electricity to users.
In the past ten months of this year, the National Power grid has collapsed 11 times –three in the past one week while in the previous week, two regions in the country-the North East and the North West has no light for two weeks. What is wrong with Nigeria?
Power Minister and a former deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria,CBN ,Adebayo Adelabu has attributed the incessant power outage and grid collapse to the over-centralisation of the power grid. The national grid of the country is in the Northern part of Nigeria. Why is the national power grid concentrated in one part of the country? Why did the country opted to put all its eggs in one basket ?.
Such is the result that any time the basket breaks down or has a leak, the whole country will grind to a halt.Why are we like this.?
Nobody has been able to provide an answer to this nagging question of over centralisation since the military came in 1966 and Unitarise the country oblivious of the dangers of Unitary in a multi- national,multi-ethnic ,multi-religious and multi-lingual country.
Why is it that we as a country cant run our nation without sentimental attachment .Why did we choose to parcel up the country into dominating groups for fear of an unknown even decades after we fought a bitter 30- month civil war to keep us together?
Since Adebayo ,who is the Minister with the biggest headache in the country beside the minister of Finance and the Oil sector which resides in the Presidency has identified the source of our problem what is delaying the decentralisation of the power sector? The Presidency has to do the needful to stop the country from moving in circles.
When he talks of over-centralisation,he is saying that Hydro,Thermal, Solar and other sources of power are all concentrated and centralised in one region of the country . Like the nations military set up, all the national grid are concentrated in the Northern region of the country.
Be it Shiroro, Jebba,and ageing Kainji areDam that is as old as ‘Metusellah’ are all located in the Northern region .It is such that when power is even generated in the South like the one at Oshogbo and Egbin, they must all be sent to the North for the TCN to transmit to the rest of the country.
Nigeria’s energy crisis is also a combination of obsolete equipment and, lack of funding,modernisation and above all the current security threat in the Northern region which has put the region on edge.
Adelabu has also identified sabotage among others as one of the problems of the frequent collapse of the power system. In other words, the forces behind insecurity in the North have found another way of shutting down the country without being physically present in all parts of the country. What then is to be done?
For there to be a new thing in the power sector, President Tinubu must do things differently and take bold steps to rejig the power concentration in one section of the country such that the security of the country is not compromised on the altar of sentiment and or satisfying age -long practise that has proved unsuitable for a country.He has to do what he has done in the Banking and Oil industry and stop those who are determined to use the power sector as the new weapon in the hands of agents of destabilisation to run the country down. Doing things the same way can never solve the problem and the President has to summon all the political Will in him to confront the monster before it consumes the country.
Today, the Power ministry has become the political ’Obituary’ of proven successful professionals and personalities in the country since the Obasanjo era. From Bola Ige, to Imoke, Fashola and now Adelabu, it has been tales of failures and impossibilities and failures. There must be something wrong somewhere.It is either the system we have all been using is not getting it right or some unknown fundamental problems as to why all our Power ministers have failed over the years.
Until we identify the problem and take bold steps to solve it, that ministry will continue to consume our best minds. It is purely systemic and not necessarily individual failures of the ministers who are success stories in their own different callings.
While we are desperately searching for investors in the power sector, such investors are not likely to be interested in a power system that is compromised by insecurity caused by lack of proper management of the security architecture. Nobody wants to invest in an insecure environment.
Besides the issue of over centralisation, yet the country has over the decades had a pact to supply neighbouring countries like,Niger,Chad with light because of the source of our Hydro power from such countries. This is the more reason why investment and modernisation of the Power sector must employ new areas like,Solar,Wind and other modern sources and not restricted to only one source – Hydro power.
In the midst of the Power crises in the country the issue of revenue which has been at the fundamental problem of the country also reared its head as a result of the introduction of the New Derivation- based mode for sharing the Value Added Tax Bill which is now comatose in the national assembly for political reasons. The uproar on the sharing of the VAT by the Northern region to me is why there will be no development in the country in so far as the formula for sharing the countries resources is based on population and not on productivity.
This also brings to fore the National question. In any part of the world no business or relationship that is run on parasitic mode will survive for each of the partners has to bring its contribution to the table for sharing.
A parasitic relationship rather than symbiotic can never last for long as it will bring inequity which will result into conflict and the attendant resolution of such conflicts especially if the beneficaries of the inequity has benefited for so long. In Nigeria generations of privileges zones have accepted it as a norm and a right conferred on them by nature. This is unacceptable. The anger and distrust in the land today is as a result of the age- long injustice brought by unequitable resource sharing .
Insecurity:
The emergence of another terrorist group named Lukarawas in the north western part of the country has added another theatre of war for our armed forces and stretch not only their capacity but the resources for containing such in the midst of serious economic problems. It has added to the headache of the military high command headed by General Christopher Musa- a Northerner himself.
His admission that the threats posed by the new group is a further addition to the misery of the North West zone -which is the biggest in the country. The activities of the new terrorist group and its ethno-religious nature if unchecked may lead to its importation to the Southern part of the country and the crisis that may engulf the South by migrants who are obviously not ready to live by the standard of their hosts.
The violent secession groups agitation in the South-East that has developed a life of its own also call to question our resolve as a people. The activities of the two groups has led to mass exodus of the vulnerable to the Western parts of the country already feeling the challenge to security and hitherto peaceful living.
Today, the South West which remains the only peaceful region in the country is now being buffered on all sides by forceful migrants from other troubled zones in the country.
The influx of the people to the South west which resources will be stressed to the point of its capacity will sooner than later throw the region into another upheaval as the inability of the new internally displaced migrants may result into conflict with the indigenes as a result of ethno- religious differences already compounded by the economic crisis all over the country.
This again has necessitated the need to revisit the issue of Restructuring the country at a meeting of all its nationalities who are angry in one way or the other by the state of in things country.
All ethnic groups in all parts of the country have one complain or the other and the earlier we all bring this to a table to resolve it in a sincere manner , the better for us as a people. As the Yoruba people say,’Owo ki di owo lo’run..your business who should not disturb my own.
It is better to jaw jaw and resolve the differences which we have managed over the years before the insurgence of unitary system and ethno -religious differences that has polarised the country.
The earlier the better the country come to terms with its implosive nature and take steps to address it the better for its survival.
