"Bitterness is like holding a piece of burning coal in your hand and hoping that it hurts someone else" - Nelson Mandela, 1913-2013
Sabotage, deliberate and planned, is increasingly becoming the most important factor in the frequent grid collapses Nigerians are experiencing now.
Don't get me wrong, the crimes committed against the people of Nigeria by governments since 1999 created the background against which the arsonists, embittered by the loss of presidential election are acting. Concentration of our public power supply in one grid has exposed us to all the calamities which every monopoly induce. We are in this situation because politics has always trumped sound economics.
LAGOS, AKWA IBOM, RIVERS AND OTHERS
"Ideas are capital; the rest is money" - Anonymous I attended the first eight Annual National Economic Summit Group, NESG, Conferences until it occurred to me that they had become hollow rituals whose recommendations, often repeated, were routinely ignored by military and civilian governments.
The first eight made the same recommendations regarding power and fuel supply; particularly about decentralisation of power supply and petroleum resources in two organisations - NEPA and NNPC. It was not until Jonathan became President in 2010 that a significant step was taken to break the power sector into three units - which now serve the nation worse than the NEPA they replaced.
Similarly, the call for the privatisation of the petroleum sector was not addressed until the Buhari administration got the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, passed during its second term. Procrastination is not only a thief of time. For Nigerian governments, delay in reforming the power and petroleum sectors served the vital kleptomaniac interests of those in power. Thus, when a seemingly appropriate bill, e.g. PIB, is passed, I have learnt to wait to see who is placed in charge of the implementation. That, invariably, betrays the intention.
"To live outside the law, you have to be honest" - Bob Dylan, US folk singer When Dylan first made that remark during the struggle for Civil Rights in 1968, I thought the Jewish-American popular singer was stretching the truth too far. Many instances in Nigeria are driving one to the conclusion that outlaws write and execute our laws.
The National Assembly is often full of people who, if properly investigated, should have been facing Justice Egwuatu - and not the kids. Even then, they probably would have secured bail terms likely to promote corruption instead of deterring it. A former governor found guilty of stealing hundreds of millions was once fined N500, 000 or go to jail for six months.
Obviously, foretold, he reached into his pocket and paid the fine. By my own estimate, the Federal Ministries of Power and Petroleum have accounted for almost half of all known and unknown cases of embezzlement of all public funds at Federal, States and Local Governments since 1970. One million Yahoo Yahoo boys and girls would have to work 1, 000 years to grab what is lost in a single year in the Petroleum Ministry alone.
In my book, PDP: CORRUPTION INCORPORATED, available online, it was established beyond dispute how the Obasanjo government sabotaged the effort to give Nigeria a real giant leap forward by leveraging on two divinely provided opportunities. By 1999, it was already wellestablished that Nigeria is a gas producing country associated with oil.
That means that our gas far exceeded our crude oil potentials. A more proactive General Ibrahim Babangida's government had launched the Liquefied Natural Gas Nigeria, NLNG, with Decree 39, 1990. It was a massive game-changer which carried the potentials of helping to diversify the Nigerian economy in many ways - especially in decentralisation of power production and distribution. Every other Federal Government, particularly Obasanjo's (1999-2007) and Jonathan's (2010-2015) had ignored the opportunities.
That is why we have national grid breakdown. All our oil producing states are sitting on trillions of cubic metres of gas which could have been used to establish gas-fed power stations in each state. They were all discouraged from venturing into the projects which would have decentralised our national supply. Two states' - Akwa Ibom and Lagos -- experiences with the FG, under Obasanjo's presidency, will help to illustrate how we missed the boat on vastly increased decentralised power supply - allied with escape from sole reliance on a single national grid; which has never served our national interest.
Governor Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom, 1999-2007, embarked on an Independent Power Project, IPP, which would have made the state selfsufficient in power supply - with 24/7 power supply guaranteed. All the IPP needed was the FG's permission to source the gas from its own deposits. But, by then, Attah had already embarked on his struggle for Resource Control - which Obasanjo vehemently opposed. Thus, on account of toxic politics, Akwa Ibom - which could have exited the national grid - is still drawing power from it. Rivers State also had its IPP; but, once again, FG opposition aborted a great idea. Governor Bola Tinubu's experience was just as illustrative of destructive politics sabotaging national interest.
Few people remember the attempt by the Tinubu administration to establish an IPP with ENRON. Despite the fact that ENRON turned out to be a great scam perpetrated by some Americans, Obasanjo's hostility to the project probably made it impossible for due diligence to be carried out on ENRON. The idea of an IPP for Lagos State remains the best possible solution to our seemingly intractable power supply problems. However, before touching on how decentralisation would work, there is a need to understand where we are at the moment; and why we cannot get very far if we continue with business as usual - which is a sure route to self-destruction.
WHERE WE STAND NOW
"Serial grid collapses: FG orders overhaul as TCN fears more breakdowns" - Report, November 8, 2024 Nigeria has suffered more grid collapses this year than at any one point in history; with devastating effects on all aspects of our lives - especially production. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, have consequently reduced our Gross Domestic Product, GDP, forecast to less than three per cent.
Thus, when the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, "fears more breakdowns", it is akin to a mother telling the children that "the kitchen might be shut down again; go fend for yourselves". Apart from the fact that this is a selfindictment of the national leadership, it has led to the obvious conclusion that the Ministry of Power is totally powerless and bereft of ideas concerning how to get the nation out of this dark hole in which we find ourselves.
Nothing proves the point better than the statement credited to the National Orientation Agency, NOA, quoted below: "Despite the 13,610MW generation capacity and over 8,000MW transmission capacity, the total active distribution capacity of the 11 DisCos in Nigeria is still hovering around 4,000MW, Just last month, on September 2nd, a peak generation in three years was achieved, but out the 5,313MW generated and wheeled out that day, the Discos rejected almost 1,400MW due to their systems fragility. These load rejections by DisCos contribute to the collapse of the national grid."
The primary reason for establishing mental hospitals in every society has been to separate those whose abnormal behaviour constitutes a danger to the welfare of others. The first step is diagnosis; because some activities, examined closely, simply don't make sense. The NOA has just described a situation which must be peculiar to Nigeria among all the nations of the world - including Banana Republics. Fortunately, the agency has indicated the way forward to us. First, analysis of the data provided by NOA reveals that the TCN can only accommodate 62 per cent of the 13,000MW the nation can possibly generate.
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That maximum places Nigeria fifth among African countries and far behind South Africa and Egypt. It is scandalous that all former presidents have left the present administration with so little power generating capacity. Second, while the TCN drops 38 per cent of power generated, the DISCOS, selected by the Jonathan government, take up only 4,000MW or 50 per cent of what TCN offers and 31 per cent of power generated. The impression is given that the demand for power supply is less than 8,000MW.
That is totally false. Indeed, the entire transmission system needs to be overhauled. I work near a transformer and know the frequency of breakdown of that unit. The experience is not different from that near my Club and my home town. Sometimes, it takes up to ten days for fault to be corrected despite the fact that office and Club are within shouting distance of the EKEDC office. The demand is definitely there; supply is the problem. In fact, it is absolutely ridiculous to imply that consumers don't want public power supply. Give us 24/7 supply and we will pay.
A MODEST PROPOSAL The FG and the National Assembly, NASS, should pass the bills necessary to enable oil and gas producing states to establish their own IPPs. In fact, a timeline should be given to ALL the states to set up their own power stations; after which they will be disconnected from the national grid. Fortunately, Lagos State is revisiting the idea of an IPP capable of satisfying its needs. Remove Lagos and the Niger Delta States from the national grid and there will be more power for the rest to share. Even uninterrupted supply might be achievable.
