Leadership (Abuja)
Ibrahim Biu
14 May 2008
Abuja — As the FCT minister, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar, seeks ways of ensuring that residents of the capital city enjoy uninterrupted power supply, LEADERSHIP's IBRAHIM BIU x-rays the possibilities against the backdrop of failures by past governments to address the problem.
Energy is the wheel of any human endeavour. The influx of people into the Federal Capital Territory, for one reason or the other, has reached a very high proportion such that almost all facilities and services have been seriously overstretched to their limits.
More than three quarters of Abuja residents, especially those living in the cities and satellite towns are professionals or career people engaged in one trade or the other. While some of them are involved in selling and buying, others are printers, contractors, office workers, artisans, and those engaged in providing various services to those who want them. All the categories of people mentioned above need electricity to carry out their assignments.
In other words, most of the Abuja residents cannot do without electricity. And when electricity is not available they rely on generating sets as an alternative. This, however, comes with its own problems, especially the high cost of diesel or petrol. Diesel now costs about N100.00 per litre while petrol is bought for between N70.00 per litre and N500.00 per gallon in the black market. Therefore, businessmen and other traders who produce services, find it very difficult to meet their production costs let alone make profit. The only alternative open to such people to make a small profit is to increase the cost of their services and this is always transferred to the common man who usually bears the burden of such situation occassioned by lack of electricity.
In addition to this, office workers also experience these difficulties in discharging their assignments. Moreover, it is difficult to get good drinking water where there is no electricity.
Therefore, the importance of electricity to Abuja cannot be over-emphasised. It is against this background that the recent decision by the FCT minister, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar, to enter into an agreement with a German company to generate about 1000 megawatts of electricity to Abuja is commendable. Though, signing the contract was an important event, as it is usual with Dr. Aliyu Modibbo, it was quietly held even as such an action is capable of affecting the economic fortunes of the entire FCT in a positive way.
The minister's decision is a welcome one. No doubt, millions of Abuja residents will heave a deep sigh of relief as a result of this good news. This is because they usually spend their days without power supply for hours and in some cases days.
The electricity situation is pathetic. It is because of this poor situation that the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, adopted a short- term measure to deal with it. In 2003, Chief Obasanjo established three electricity generating centres at Apo, Wuse and Katampe to provide electricity to the villa, central business district, Maitama, Wuse and Wuse II areas.
However, the Dr. Aliyu Modibbo arrangement is a different initiative. It is a long term one which is most preferred because it will benefit the people more and also last much longer. Under the agreement which will involve generating electricity at the Gwagwalada Industrial area for the next 24 months, the German company will produce the experts to man or supervise the project for the next few years. The proposed 1000 Megawatts is intended to complement whatever FCT is currently receiving from the national grid.
Though the three electricity sub-stations are still on ground, the electricity demand for the Abuja city centre remains unmet as electricity is supplied on rotational basis to residents. Some areas have complained that only huge bills are given to them monthly instead of the much needed electricity.
These areas include Lugbe, Alaita, Pyakassa, Nyanya, Karu, Kubwa, Dutse Alhaji, Jikwoyi, Jabi, Gwagwa, Karmo, Jiwa, Dei-Dei, Idu industrial areas, Kado village and other villages located along the expressway to the Abuja-Kaduna road. People in these towns have complained that frequent power outages have led to the perpetration of some unholy activities by hoodlums under the cover of darkness.
More worrisome is the fact that many residents are not able to store their food items in their refrigerators or even enjoy electricity supply for hours during the day or even at nights. No doubt, lack of electricity supply has increased the widespread criminal activities in some areas.
Apart from the fact that large quantities of food items stored in fridges and refrigerators are often destroyed, leading to loss of millions of naira monthly or even weekly the frequent outage of electricity to some areas, usually lead to the destruction of electrical appliances with its concomitant heavy losses.
Similarly, many businessmen and industrialists, complain daily about the huge amount of money usually spent on buying generators and the diesel or petrol to power the generators.
Where there are no adequate health facilities people will resort to self-help initiatives: where there are no houses people will build shanties or make-shift houses. Where there is no electricity, people will use old method of providing light like lanterns and candles with all its hazards.
Against the backdrop of the poor electricity supply available to Abuja residents, it is clear that the Aliyu-led FCT administration is determined to alleviate the sufferings of the people, especially the youths who now roam the streets daily in search of jobs that are not available.
Already, it is public knowledge that the Obasanjo government spent about 16 billion naira in the power sector with nothing to show for it. The House Committee on Power has discovered that almost all the projects awarded have not taken off. There was nothing to show for most of the projects. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) correctly described the situation when it said that less than five percent of the total amount involved in all the contracts awarded in the power sector during the past eight years are on ground. This is because in most areas the contractors were either not seen on site or the site of the proposed projects was not in existence.
Abuja residents have expressed the hope that the Gwagwalada electricity project will soon materialise knowing the strong determination of the minister to complete the project. His commitment to serving the people honestly and diligently had manifested on several occasion since he assumed the mantle of leadership at the FCTA almost about eleven months ago.
The electricity project will no doubt bring about a positive development in the socio-economic, cultural and even political development of the city.
With this single action, which was formalised last week between the FCT administration and a German firm, millions of FCT residents will now be relieved as they would be able to also enjoy a steady supply of electricity in their homes and offices, probably like their counterparts in Lagos or Kaduna. Again, the immediate implication of this action by the Modibbo administration is the fact that if the electricity problem is resolved substantially it will go a long way in drastically reducing the high level of unemployment, especially among the youths in the territory. This also means that the issue of youth restiveness which has become another sore point not only in Abuja but in other state capitals will be effectively tackled since the large number of youths who flock into Abuja, will be able to secure gainful employment.
Presently, it was gathered from a reliable source, Abuja currently receives about 750 megawatts of electricity from the national grid which is inadequate for the needs of FCT residents. As it is now, most areas do not have sufficient electricity for either their businesses or in their private residents. Also, many potential industrial and commercial outfits that rely heavily on electricity cannot operate or take-off in Abuja, despite the efforts made by the FCDA to provide them with conducive environment and other logistics support such plots of land as well as other infrastructure.
It would be recalled that the minister of state for energy (Power), Hajiya Fatima Balaraba Ibrahim, who testified at the committee session recently, said that the federal government spent over $13 billion in the power sector from 1999 to 2007, but that she was not sure whether the money was misappropriated or not.
The cheering news is that another 1000 megawatts of electricity is to be generated and supplied to Abuja by the German company. This arrangement which is expected to start within the next 24 months will put a stop to the current shortage of electricity being experienced in some parts of the FCT which led to a situation where residents are now forced to stay without electricity for several days or weeks. This has no doubt affected their businesses.
Residents of Kugbo have consistently appealed to the authorities of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to be just in the distribution of electricity in the area. They alleged that they had noticed that some parts in the area have constant electricity supply, while those of them in other streets and environs don't.
Meanwhile, Dr. Aliyu recently advocated a massive shake-up in PHCN as a way of resolving the impasse in the power sector. He had, while exchanging views with members of the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel investigating the alleged $16 billion spent in the power sector without commensurate results, said the committee should not be intimidated or frustrated in their effort to unravel the mystery behind the alleged spending.
He said, "don't be discouraged; don't be intimidated, uncover the truth and lay it before Nigerians. It's high time we overcame all these primordial sentiments. If we're to correct things, we must know our mistakes and this is exactly what your committee is doing. You're making history with your activities and you're making our generation proud."
According to the minister, the PHCN has become an agent of massive corruption and has been flagrantly arrogant in the performance of its duties, stressing that the current power crisis would not be resolved until PHCN was restructured.
Dr. Modibbo who narrated his experience as a minister of state for power and steel under the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, said staff of PHCN exhibited insubordination by refusing to accord his office the respect it deserves.
There is need for massive restructuring in the PHCN if we're to move forward. They have become too arrogant because they have made their money. When I was the minister of Energy (Power) in March 2007, at the peak of the electioneering campaigns, there was power crisis. I visited the headquarters of PHCN, but the officials refused to receive me and did not supply me with the information needed", he said.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel, Mr. Godwin Ndudi Elumelu, told the minister that the FCT has several power projects but regretted that none of the projects was completed despite huge sums of money advanced.
On the efforts of the minister to generate more electricity, a senior PHCN official at zone six in Abuja commended the initiative which he described as a bold step towards boosting Abuja's socio-economic status. He stated that such gestures should be emulated by various state governors across the country.
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