18th February, 2013
“God willing, as we progress to 2013, improvements will become clearer. One advantage we have is that Nigeria has gas. Sometimes when you compare Nigeria and other countries in terms of the quantum of power generated, you begin to wonder: How can Nigeria generate only this?” (President Goodluck Jonathan in an interview with a national magazine on February 27, 2012.)
Can it not be said, without any modesty whatsoever, that the year 2015 is a bit too distant to bother anyone who truly loves Nigeria and prefers that our leaders be left to concentrate on the problems and challenges of the moment? In fact, a good friend and colleague suggested in a recent article that our politicians should please excuse our leaders, at whatever level, from any kind of distractions, so that they would have no explanations for not delivering on their promises. The year 2015 should be allowed to evolve and should be permitted to take care of itself. But, trust the Nigerian politicians, they are already discussing 2015 as if the year was just next door or next week. My worry, really, is that less than half-way into President Goodluck Jonathan’s mandate, and with more than two years to the next political competition, our focus on specific priorities are daily assaulted by those to whom politics is primarily big business and primitive accumulation. It is becoming somewhat worrisome. And I ask: is it not too early to allow 2015 to distract us?
If you ask me, there are some very critical national problems that should really engage the minds and attention of serious-minded Nigerians, not only because they have been there for many years, even decades, but more because until we get them sorted out one way or the other, our efforts at national development would continue to suffer in impact.
One thing that bothers me so much is the state of our electricity. I am worried about what negative impact poor electricity has had on our efforts to develop our economy. And I believe strongly that we need to give the mafia that has existed in the power sector a really good fight. The existence of this clique and its fighting spirit made it impossible for someone like Chief Bola Ige, a respected agent of change and performer, to fail in his patriotic attempt to radically improve electricity supply in the country as Minister of Power.
When Ige was appointed Power Minister by President Olusegun Obasanjo, he did not fully appreciate the character of the mafia that had ruled and dominated Nigeria’s power sector. Consequently, he promised Nigerians, innocently, that in six months, they would witness improved electricity supply to our homes, offices and industries. It didn’t happen! It didn’t happen because the cabal in the sector resisted the changes that he was introducing. Ige, so the story went at the time, asked to be redeployed. Obasanjo obliged him.
But today, it seems obvious that since Jonathan’s power reform agenda began to gather momentum and poise the mafia has not been finding it easy. But, the cabal has not been defeated yet. Many informed industry watchers do not envy the new Power Minister, Prof. Chinedu Nebo and the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power, Engr. Beks Dagogo-Jack. Indeed, these two men and the organisations they head are deployed, so to speak, to the hottest war front of this dispensation. When commanders are deployed to hot sectors in any war, for indeed this is a war against persistent darkness that has held our country development down for years and decades, they are provided with adequate supplies of resources to enable them hold back the enemy and gain ground. In the common parlance of my younger years, Nebo and Dagogo-Jack have been deployed to take charge of ‘Onitsha sector’ – if you see what I mean! They would need all the encouragement and support in their combined effort to execute the power reform programme of the Jonathan administration. For Dagogo-jack and Nebo to sustain what has been achieved and make more progress, the mafia in the sector must be defeated because the two men should know, a cabal certainly will not bow out without a fight.
The new power minister, Professor Nebo, from available records, is a successful academic and administrator. This new appointment appears to be his first major outing outside the ivory tower. He would, therefore, need to learn fast and adjust quickly. He would also require the cooperation and understanding of tested and experienced industry hands. But even more importantly, he needs to construct a good working partnership with the Beks Dagogo-Jack led Presidential Task Force on Power, PTFP, the Presidential Action Committee on Power and other critical stakeholders in the industry because it is important that he succeeds in this critical and important national assignment.
Two, solving electricity supply shortage in Nigeria is a priority programme of the Jonathan administration. The Honourable Minister should, therefore, give his best and help sustain what has been achieved by both the power ministry and the PTFP. Yes, for sure, the mafia in the sector may have been substantially dislodged, but it is by no means defeated.
The combined efforts of the power ministry under Prof. Barth Nnaji and the Dagogo-Jack-led PTFP seem to have put Nigeria’s power reform agenda on a good track, perhaps irreversibly. Prof. Nebo should tap from these efforts, from the huge reservoir of technical and technocratic manpower available at his ministry and, more so, at the Presidential Task Force on Power. Again, he should stop and firmly deal with the excesses of the Nigeria Customs and Excise Department over delays and seizure of equipment and facilities imported for power projects which get unnecessarily stranded at various ports, and oftentimes auctioned away to dubious businessmen and cronies. Our ports and associate facilities must no longer be littered with vital equipment and other critical imports needed to boost power supply in the country.
The President strikes me as fully prepared, determined and committed to solving the electricity supply problems which he inherited from a succession of past administrations. He should realise, though, that Nigerians would be so delighted and feel immensely rewarded (for their votes) if they can enjoy full and uninterrupted power supply, as Ghanaians and Burkinabes do. I remember vividly that when former Power Minister, Prof. Nnaji, left rather suddenly, and in the circumstance in which he did, the hopes of most Nigerians for improved electricity dimmed. The good news which surfaced later was that the PTFP largely sustained the momentum and pace, and was carrying on from there. True, the Obasanjo administration proved, if any proof was still needed, that telephones should not be the preserve of only the rich. And, today, Nigerians take telephones for granted. To achieve that ‘feat’, his administration gave Dr. Ernest Ndukwe’s Commission all the encouragement and support it needed to make this ‘miracle’ happen. President Jonathan should, similarly, give Prof. Chinedu Nebo and Engr. Beks Dagogo-Jack all that they may require in their combined efforts to chase darkness away from our shores. So, help us God!
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