Since the beginning of creation when God pronounced end of darkness and difference between day and night,above has been the case…Genesis 1:3
God has never for once abdicated his fatherly role, neither has he failed in his own fatherly protection.
Though humans has modernized the system, it has over the years failed to perfect its modernisation.
Thank God, He has never failed and will never Fail.
Even in darkness of the night,the Moon is there to illuminate the world.
For Nigeria, while other countries of the world perform their role in ensuring that the word of God stands for sure through its own modernisation of light, this provision has been the most difficult task since independence.
This has defied solutions in the past four decades with various government struggling to match up with the development of the country.
In our cities and villages,supply of electricity in modern times has become as elusive as it could be while ministers responsible for managing the sector has by circumstances of time and season reduced there performance level.
The citizens had never had it so bad especially in the past four decades.
It will be recalled that Electricity generation in the entity now known as Nigeria began in Lagos in 1886 with the use of generator to provide 60 KW.
In 1896,the first Power plant was inaugurated while in 1898 street light was introduced in European residential areas.
However,the first coal-fired Power plant was built in Nigeria in 1923 while the Nigerian Electrical Supply Company,NESC, was established in1929 and that began the first attempt to embark on public power supply and commercialisation.
To move forward, the Nigerian Government Electricity Undertaking,NGEU was established in 1946 and the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria,ECN was established in 1950.
In 1972, the ECN was changed to National Electric Power Authority,NEPA,a name which still resonates in the minds of Nigerians even after its metamorphosis into a new entity.
This is so because,the era of NEPA began the beginning of a comatose and unreliable power supply system .
Yours faithfully could recall that in the early and up till late 70’s, the then ECN,took it as a duty to inform customers before light is disconnected in any area and would equally inform its customers when it would be restored.
When NEPA came the chorus became… “Never Expect Power Always”, in the minds and lips of Nigerians.
It has been that bad since then.
Even with the year 2005 Electricity Power Sector Reform Act embarked upon by the new civilian government of President Olusegun Obasanjo which passage into law gave birth to the privatization of electricity services,the performance of electricity system has gone from bad to worst.
Today,local communities contribute money to buy poles,cables and transformers while the distribution companies berthed by the 2005 Act took light at will and charge customers exorbitantly even when they contributed next to nothing to connect communities.
To make matters worst,when such transformers had issues communities are left to either grease the palms of Disco officials to repair it or asked such communities to help themselves to procure new transformers.
The privatization system without compelling provision for Discos to invest on infrastructures simply put the masses at the mercy of exploitative distribution companies sustained a weak control system.
Today,the installed capacity of power generating facilities of the country is 16,384 MW made up of Thermal=10,142 MW;Hydro=2,380MW and Gas 11,972MW..this is lower due to the epileptic Gas supply.
Besides,the distribution companies could only supply 4,500 MW which is actually dispatched on a daily basis to the 36 states of the Federation and Abuja,the Federal Capital Territory.
This generating and distribution capacity is for a country of 220 million which normal requirement is over 40.7 Terawatts.
How could there be Light with this shortfall in generation taken into consideration the in-built politics of power distribution and pervasive corruption which has prevented the billions of dollars investment in the sector over the years from servicing the purpose for which it was meant for.
Aside from the above, electricity supply is also hindered by the system of Transmission, Distribution and Atmospheric constraints .
Besides,it has been verified that Atmospheric condition, Mechanic availability and Feedstock can change the target of even the minimal that can be supplied.
With the humongous amount of money pumped into the system since 2005 by the Federal government which still holds the Transmission Company of Nigeria,TCN, to its chest for national security reasons, it could only transmit 4500 to its citizens of 220m whereas South Africa has 45,000 megawats far more than the requirement of the highly industrious nation.
Yet,Nigeria calls itself giant of Africa.
As at 2021,the country has only been able to distribute 4,094 out of its available 8,000mw.
The moment it peaked to 5,076.50 megawatts it will drop.
This has been attributed to various disruptive factors.
In 2024,the generation increased by 30% from 4,100 to 5,528 by the end of the year.
Indeed,the problem of power availability in the country is second only to insecurity which has plaqued a section of the country which ironically had more power distribution allocated to it than the highly industrial Southern states.
What an Irony!
From late formercGovernor of old Oyo state Bola Ige-the Cicero of Esa Oke, who was first appointed by Obasanjo to perform the magic of restoring power sector, to Liyyel Imoke,Berth Nnaji and Babatunde Fashola,managing the sector has not only demeaned their capacity and competence but also reveal the human frailties in managing Nigerias contrapted energy space.
The more money is voted for the sector,the more pains the people and indeed industries that rely on frequent supply of power suffered.
Under the 10- year administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu put together, the country has experienced collapse of the national Grid 105 times.
While Buhari experienced 93 collapses in eight years,Tinubu has suffered twelve in two years.
From January till date the grid has collapsed three times with blackouts all over the country.
The Tinubu government alone has recorded 12 collapses in 16 months.
The National grid is a vast network of electrical transmission lines that link power stations to end use customers across the country.
In the past one decade,the World Bank has given loans up to $4.36 billion though it admitted not all has been disbursed to the country.
Before then,the Obasanjo administration allegedly spent $16billion dollars on the sector.
It is such that eighteen years after the end of the government, it is still story of denial of how much was actually spent with nothing to show for it.
Today,the man with the biggest headache among Tinubus Ministers,Adebayo Adelabu while admitting the problems, has identified three factors- environmental, sabotage and ageing infrastructures as the main problem of the electricity industry.
While much of the sabotage is attributable to insecurity in the North with little industrial consumption.
For two weeks last year between November and December, both the North West and North East has a total collapse due to sabotage by hoodlums and militants.
As for the inability to generate more power,it is on record that the Obasanjo government practically frustrated efforts by Lagos and Akwa Ibom states to build,transmit and distribute power.
While incumbent President Tinubu as governor brought Enron to Lagos in year 2000 but was frustrated by Obasanjo claiming power is on exclusive legislative list, Governor Attah did commission his project but was asked to send power generated to the National grid..the result is as good as your guess.
Also Read:Power:$3b not $16bn was spent by Obasanjo administration – Imoke
Zungeru power plant: FG Promises redemption of N2b Compensation for displaced communities
Vandals steal TCN cable distributing light to Aso rock,others
The question is, how could a growing nation be tied to archaic Unitary system imposed on it by the military which supposedly came to rescue the country but 65 years down the line has ended up compounding her problems and end up building a huge contraption which has been antithesis of development.
Experience has also shown that the nation can do better by avoiding electing leaders and President with military mindset who are bent on foisting Unitarism on a multi lingual,multi-ethinc and multi-cultural country.
It has never worked anywhere and it will never work.
President Bola Tinubu by signing the amended Electrical Act into law should go a step further to support and encourage states to start the process of generating, transmitting and distributing power to serve their various needs.
It is only when states can do what Lagos,Niger,Ondo,Akwa Ibom and others are doing that Infrastructural restructuring can have meaning in a country long held down by military conquerors and their hegemonic civilian collaborators who are out to satisfy their narrow and selfish motives.
After restructuring and liberating the Oil,Gas,Police and Agricultural sectors,it is only reasonable that such sectors could only endure and be sustained by decentralising control of the Power sector which is crucial for the nation’s economic growth and survival.
