Poor State of Electricity Supply : Fashola is Technically Unfit to Fix Power-Prof. Olagoke

Nigerians are not happy about the poor state of electricity supply all over the country.

They lament that lack of regular electricity supply has crippled their businesses and affected various economic activities.

The challenges confronting the power sector cuts across transmission, distribution and generation.

Nigerians buy their own transformers, cables and other relevant inputs to enjoy electricity supply, only to be told by the distribution companies to sign off same to the companies.

South Africa with a population of 56.7 million people, generates 51,000 megawatts, Nigeria with a population of about 200 million people generates below 7,000 megawatts. 

Interestingly, the distribution companies make Pre paid meters unavailable to promote their profit driven agenda.

The agitation by Nigerians presently, is for the Federal Government to take over the functions of the power distribution companies because the distribution companies have not performed up to expectation. In this interview with Federationews2day, the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke opines that the problems of the power sector are too technical for the Minister in charge, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, who is a Lawyer of note, to understand and fix. Excerpts :

What do you think is the solution to the persistent lack of electricity supply in Nigeria ?

The major problem we have in Nigeria is that the common man , our leaders and decision makers do not buy and sell in the same market, otherwise a direct pulse of the nation would have informed them of the true economic situation and the very poor living conditions of a large percentage of the Nigerian population who constitute the masses and the middle economic class.

The issue of power in any nation is central and pivotal to the development in the home, community and the nation at large.

Where there is no regular supply of electricity, preservation of food for a reasonable period of time becomes impossible.

Apart from some other forms of discomfort that could make life to be unbearable, where there is a generating plant for the supply of electricity, it is usually run at a cost that would be unbearable even for the middle economic class.

What of the accompanying noise pollution that is responsible as the major causes of partial deafness for most people ?

But for the ruling class-elite and political class- most of these things are got free of charge without realizing that they are scarce commodities for the greatest population of people in the low economic class. At the community service level, development would rather be very slow in the area of road construction, transportation of people and farm produce from villages to the urban centers, resulting into another poor living condition.

At the national level economic growth is stunted, industrialization becomes a mirage, mass exodus of experts in various field of human endeavor depletes the strength of the nation.

Company relocation from Nigeria to other countries like Ghana and South Africa as had been experienced in the year 2007 to 2009, when more than 849 companies collapsed here only to resurface elsewhere, leading to Oedipus complex of unemployment.

It is unfortunate that year in year out, we churn out graduates from our higher institutions into a threatening world of unemployment due to epileptic power supply that has crippled the industrial sector.

The major problem confronting the power sector is about the people’s sincerity of purpose as a necessary condition to power our industrial sector.

Corruption of the highest order, starting at the point of contract award, riddled with insincere quotation, poor job financing due to poor quality of materials that depleted the funding package are all highlights of the present situation.

When a nation is confronted with these kind of problems and challenges, governance demands for periodical reviews to expose the weak areas and the areas of threats that are responsible for the failure of this all important sector with a view to correcting the anomalies and with the determination of purpose, re-pursue the projects to activate it from comatose state to a sustainable service level that would in effect resuscitate all dead areas of development.

Various allegations relating to the cost of N16 billion on the power project during the administration of Chief(Dr.) Olusegun Obasanjo ought to be Nigeria’s primary concern.

Furthermore, the improvement assessment of the performance level of when the power sector was functioning as a flow line and that of when it was unbundled into generating, transmission and distribution units, need to be compared.

So also, the added advantage level of when government was running it before it was privatized needs to be reviewed.

The outcome of all the results would help us to take the right decision.

However, it is my opinion that the power sector couldn’t have performed better under the present arrangement, whereby the Minister in charge is a Lawyer although of very high status and a one time Governor with records of dynamism, even though technically he is unfit to fix the power sector, most especially while working with people of doubtful character.

Equally, of importance is that he is saddled with more than what a non-professional in this specific field-Power, Works and Housing-could chew, even an angel and a professional will never be able to cope in an environment of working with people of doubtful character, who are not also patriotic.

We all know the right thing to do in sanitizing this sensitive sector of our lives, but sentiments and over politicization of the issue will never help us to resolve the mysteries around the eternal record of epileptic supply of electricity.

Government itself has never encouraged us to build our generating sets despite the number of technically biased schools or Ivory towers that could have encouraged production of generating sets here in Nigeria.

The cost of running a generating set both at the home front and, Municipal and Industrial sector, is always on the high side compared to the craziest estimated billing.

Why is government then so slow in bringing offenders thwarting the cause of Nigeria having stable supply of electricity ?

Politicians are supposed to be skill based and under inclusive government, merit is supposed to override parochial sentiments of nepotism in employment and contract awards.

There is nothing wrong in searching and looking for experts in the various fields as may be relevant to any particular political party.

In the new dispensation of the emerging transition, one expects to have new hands on the deck that must be ready to correct the anomalies of the past, so that all Ministers are accountable and should be instantly removable when records of performance are not impressive.

Unbundling the Power Holding Company of Nigeria(PHCN) flow line is the wisest thing to have been done, contracting power generation level through privatization is to ensure that the wrong hands of inefficiency, laziness and low productivity are avoided, for the people to be well served.

We need to remember that the search outcome of vision 20–20–20 continue to lay fallow in our higher institutions as well as research institutions, with no successive government bothering to look in this direction again.

We waste energy and materials as we sacrifice them for mere political sentiments.

How do we then move to develop, when we fail to generate the minimum of 6,000 megawatts of electricity and a minimum of $900 billion as Gross Domestic Product(GDP) for Nigeria to be able to break even into an economically stable nation to be one of the first 20 nations that could be classified s environmentally stable, economically viable to accommodate project feasibility.

The new government must wake up in the areas of effective corruption control and prevention of institutional indiscipline for all ideas, initiatives to transform the fortunes of the nation into serving all Nigerians, starting from resolving the issue of Pre-Paid Meters and the bringing of offenders that sabotage the glory of dignity of labor to book without fear or favor as of when due.