For the past few weeks Nigerians have been living in misery as public power supply drastically declined, reports Okey Ndiribe.

RESIDENTS of the Ifako community , a suburb of Lagos in the Ifako/Ijaiye Local Government Area of the state have never experienced this type of persistent black-out in recent times. Although, they have been used to the epileptic power supply in the community over the years but not persistent black-out which in some cases lasted for days.

Lamenting about the situation in the area while speaking to Vanguard Features (VF) last Thursday in Lagos, the Proprietor of Ifako International College, Mr Wande Majekodunmi said that in the past week, power had been supplied to the area for about 25 hours.

He continued: "Sometimes, the black-out lasts for as long as 48 hours".

He said whenever this happened, the school had been compelled to resort to the use of its 30 KVA generator to operate most of the institution's gadgets in its classrooms and laboratories.

"We have to use the generator to pump water from the school's bore-hole, power the fans in the classrooms and ensure that the information technology and other science laboratories are functional", he said.

Majekodunmi's lamentations are not different from that of Mr. John Oghenekegba, a resident of Robert Street, at Ipaja area, another suburb in the metropolis. He said that power supply in the area has been deplorable in the past one month.

" For the past one month power supply in this area hardly lasts for more than one hour in a whole day," he complained. He said the experience has been bitter and heart-rending.

He continued: "We don't have pipe-borne water in this area. So when there is no power supply, water becomes very scarce because the private bore-hole owners in the area would not have power to pump water to sell".

Oghenekegba further complained that another fall-out of the black-out is that it leads to environmental and noise pollution arising from the wide-spread use of electricity generators by many residents of the area.

"We have been suffering and smiling especially now there is so much heat," he said. It is also a tale of woes at Ilasamaja, in Mushin Local Government Area of the state.

A resident of Mushin road in the area who simply identified himself as Adeleke said that the situation has been terrible in the last few weeks.

However, the situation is not restricted to Lagos state alone. Residents of Sango in Ogun state have been facing serious power outages in the past six weeks. Investigations revealed that youths living around the Coca area along Idiroko road, who could not endure the situation any longer rough-handled officials of the National Electric Power Authority ( NEPA) who went to the area to replace a faulty fuse in the transformer located within the vicinity. It was gathered that the youths beat up the NEPA officials and chased them away. In retaliation, the NEPA officials abandoned the transformer thereby plunging the whole area into a black-out ever since.

Nevertheless, reports from different parts of the country indicate that public power supply has declined considerably in the past one month. Investigations by VF have revealed that the situation is traceable to various factors, principal of which is the decline in the power generated from the various power stations across the country.

It was learnt that daily power generated from the hydro and thermal power stations across the country has declined from 3300 megawatts (mw) to 2566 mw. Already top NEPA officials have confirmed the development. Mr. Okechukwu Ozoemena, NEPA's Director in charge of power generation while speaking to journalists last week explained that the situation is traceable to the very low water level in all hydro power stations across the country. He said that the combined power generated from Kainji, Shiroro and Jebba dams have declined from 800 mw to about 500 mw. Ozoemenam said that the prevailing situation arose because NEPA relied on wrong water level projections given by meteorologists in Mali.

Apart from the reasons given by Ozoemenam, there are indications that denial of gas supply to NEPA's thermal power stations may be among the factors responsible for the pervasive black-out being witnessed in several parts of the country. It was learnt that last August, that the supply of gas by the Nigeria Gas Company, to the Egbin Thermal Power Station located at Ijede near Ikorodu, Lagos was reduced. This resulted in the decline of power generated at the station from 1300 mw to 900 mw. It was learnt that NGC which is a subsidiary of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) may have taken this step as a result of a whopping N1.6 billion debt being owed the company by NEPA.

VF gathered that NGC is mounting pressure on the Federal Government to compel NEPA to pay commercial price for the gas it is supplied. NEPA currently pays N12 per thousand cubic feet of gas which is much lower than the commercial rate of N422. Early in the year, NEPA had attributed the shortfall to the power it was generating from Egbin, to the reduction in the supply of gas to the power station. NEPA's spokesman for Lagos zone Mr. Pekun Adeyanju had accused Chevron, Texaco and Shell Petroleum Development Company ( SPDC) of cutting their supply of gas to the power station. He said that this cut in supply resulted in a 25 percent decline in power generated from the station. However, the petroleum companies had denied the allegation at the time and accused NEPA of attempting to give excuse for its poor performance.

However, NEPA's management believes that the fundamental factor responsible for the present pervasive black-out is the inability of the parastatal to generate enough power supply to meet the nation's energy needs. Speaking in Lagos last week at a lecture organised by Nigeria Institution of Mechanical Engineers, NEPA's Managing Director Engr. Joseph Makoju said that apart from the current problems faced by the corporation, "the huge gap that still exists between supply and demand for power is the fundamental reason why power supply is still unstable".

Makoju said that although the Federal Government has embarked on an ambitious programme of building new power stations that would increase power generation to 10,000 megawatts, this cannot be realised until 2007.

Nevertheless, Makoju's optimistic projections do not seem to impress the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE). Casting a retrospective glance at the present Federal Government's performance in the power sector, the Head of Information at the national headquarters of the union, Mr. Joe Ajaero asked the government to explain what happened to the N100 billion naira which was supposed to have been spent in rehabilitating NEPA.

Ajaero said that the present administration's approach in working towards attaining its goal of providing uninterrupted power supply to Nigerians was wrong. He accused the government of spending a huge proportion of the fund allocated to NEPA to establish independent power projects which are very expensive.

"Despite the fact that what has been spent in the power sector so far was mainly used to support the establishment of independent power projects, only 500 megawatts has been added to the national grid from this effort" he said.

He shares Makoju's view that the nation needs about 10,000 megawatts before it can achieve stable power supply but maintains that in addition to generation, the nation's transmission and distribution network has to be strengthened to evacuate the power generated.

Makoju agrees with Ajaero that a lot still needs to be done to realise the Federal Government's dream of achieving a stable power supply by 2007.

The NEPA chief executive further says that the corporation was exploring various ways of achieving its goal by 2007.

Said he: "Other measures NEPA is putting in place to achieve its goal of uninterrupted power supply by 2007 includes that of generating power from coal and solar energy". He added that the corporation is currently working with a South African firm to realise this goal. Makoju said that another measure NEPA is currently taking to provide the nation with regular power supply is that of creating power pools with neighbouring countries. According to him: "this would enable participating countries to benefit from the collective pool".