Follow Us on Google
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
― – Edward R. Murrow
By Cosmas Omegoh
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, last week, got some flak for the lingering energy crisis engulfing the country.
Since Adelabu got appointed into office, what he did and more of what he hasn’t done have left Nigerians hurting and the economy halting.
The truth of the matter is that the country and its people are currently grieving and groaning under the excruciating weight of epileptic, and more often, lack of power supply.
Over the past months, all the talk about improving the power sector end as motion and no movement. Or at least that is the way the people see it.
Because power supply has not improved, the generality of the people whose electricity needs Adelabu currently superintends are daily plunging into multi-dimensional poverty.
Sadly, while the nation grimaced following the debacle that has become power supply in the country, it emerged last Tuesday that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) under Adelabu’s ministry had jacked up electricity tariff by 240 per cent.
Beleaguered Nigerians only seeing a few hours of daily if not weekly power supply, now have to brace up to a shock 240 per cent tariff increase.
The import of the story is that the people, going forward will be further burdened and impoverished. They will be paying N200 per kilowatt-hour of electricity up from the current N68 with no guarantee of regular supply.
When Bloomberg news agency broke the news of the unfortunate development, some people thought they were in a dream, believing that they would soon wake up from it.
Hints provided by the agency sufficiently suggested that the new energy policy had the imprimatur of the Presidency, aiming “to make the energy market more financially sustainable and appealing to investors.”
But sources are emphatic that the Federal Government was only desperate to end what it calls electricity subsidy that had surpassed the N1.3 trillion threshold, whereas only N450 billion was set aside for the programme in the 2024 budget.
Some persons knowledgeable in the power sub-sector revealled that the government move on the chess board was a scheme it had long been plotting.
The government was only waiting for an auspicious opportunity to further shirk its responsibility of catering for the people. And having found the right time, again it did.
Now, the questions being asked at every quarter are why is the current government always choosing to throw the people under the bus at will? Why is this government consistently suffocating the people by always distancing itself from subsidising the basic things the people need to survive these hard times?
Meanwhile, the big doubt in every mind right now is that the government’s decision to increase power tariff will not in any way improve supply in the near future. The generality of the people believe that the government’s move was borne out of desperation to hands off programmes that benefit the masses, preferring to give politically-driven palliatives.
Many industry players are full of lamentations that Nigeria’s much vaulted attempts to improve power supply since 1999, and the huge sums so far sunk into it do not corrolate with what is on ground at the moment. They cite systemic corruption as the real bane of the Nigerian power sector, insisting that until a government that is sincere about ramping up the sector arrives, nothing positive will ever be achieved.
Sources say Nigeria has the capacity to generate 22,000 megawatts of power. But since November 2022, it has been doing 4,594.6 MW for an estimated 200 million people; that is a mere drop in the ocean.
The same sources suggest that comparatively, the country’s power sector output is a far cry from South Africa’s 40,000MW, Egypt’s installed capacity of 55,000 MW, and India’s 80,000MW. They point at Ethiopia which recently constructed its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam to produce 5.15 GW of power when fully completed, as a serious country eager to develop its energy sector. They wonder in which direction Minister Adelabu is looking if, indeed, he is eager to make his mark in the ministry assigned to him.
Sadly, a recent projection by a coalition of Society for Planet and Prosperity, GCA Capital Partners and Climate Advisers Network, suggested that an estimated 25,000 megawatts of power utilised in Nigeria is supplied by generators. The national grid only supplied less than 5,000 MW of electricity. But has that changed?
The coalition concluded that 75 per cent of Nigeria’s energy need was sourced from – and still being sourced – from diesel and petrol-powered generators. That confirmed what the people already know.
Most people believe that Nigeria would have long shut down, but for the ingenuity of the people to fend for themselves. This is brutal truth Minister Adelabu and the present government must be bold to confront.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s energy crisis has stayed consistent over the past decade now. Each administration comes with the best of paper work and even vows to change the narratives in six months or be stoned. But when the chips are down, the entire highfalutin talks end up as balderdash.
Fair enough, Nigeria’s current power crisis predates the present President Bola Tinubu administration.
However, on arrival, Team Tinubu promised Renewed Hope, a catch phrase that seemingly resonated with many people. They believed the Jagaban of Borgu has uncanny revolutionary strategies to turn things around perhaps beginning with the power sector. But so far nothing has happened.
Given the critical role power can play in salvaging a Nigeria currently in distress, many people were upbeat that Minister Adelabu was the best fit for the office he currently occupies. Perhaps they were right.
But between May 2023 when Minister Adelabu took his oath of office and now, Nigerians know better.
Reality check is that the people and businesses still depend heavily on generators.
Sadly, right now, the cost of alternative power has gone through the roof. Companies which cannot afford the cost of power are either shutting down or limiting their hours of operation.
Therefore, Minister Adelabu needs to be told that people are no longer amused by banters between power-generating and transmission companies over who is letting the people down. No one is interested anymore in listening to power-distribution companies’ excuses of not getting power from the former duo in the value chain.
Mr Adelabu must be told that weary Nigerians no longer listen to tales of collapsing national grid, or how vandals stall power from flowing in the pylons and lack of gas to power turbines here and there. These are old lines which no longer resonate; after all, they are problems he was appointed to fix.
When Adelabu recently threatened to revoke the licenses of some non-performing DISCOs, some persons who listened to him wondered if he was not coming late to the party. They wondered in what direction he was looking all the while he has been in office.
Right now, Adelabu is being pillored by a section of the press for being seeming opaque and for failing to address critical issues via the right channels. Some say he prefers to address the nation at his party, APC’s functions. This they interpret as his disposition to serious issues. But that might be his style anyway!
Overall, Adelabu and the present government must get it that Nigerians and businesses are already reeling and suffocating following the recent 240 per cent hike in power tariff. That is another huge burden they have placed on all and sundry.
In some quarters right now the people are asking: couldn’t the government have found a delicate balance between the current tariff increment and endlessly overburdening Nigerians already gravely suffering? This indeed, is the big question Adelabu and his masters should struggle to answer.
