EPILEPTIC ELECTRICITY: IS NIGERIA CURSED?

 

A few decades ago, as a little boy, we were accustomed to the epileptic electricity provided us by the National Electric Power Authority which we famously called NEPA. We incessantly complained about the poor electricity service provided by that government authority but we couldn’t do much about it since we were in a military era lead by the military dictator the late General Abacha.

When a democratic era was heralded by General Abdulsalami, one of the talking points of the manifestos that characterized the political campaigns of the parties of that era was electric power. The contestants promised Nigerians that they would fix electricity once they got into power and Nigerians chose Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo of the People’s Democratic Party PDP ahead of Chief Olu Falae of the Action for Democracy AD.

Mr. Obasanjo arrived the scene with a deregulation agenda starting from the communication sector whose benefits were immediate. Then he turned his eyes towards the power sector. Nigerians assumed that when he decided to change the name from National electric power authority NEPA to Power Holding Company of Nigeria PHCN, that this was sign that a new lease of life was arriving the sector.

Nigerians had seen such deregulation moves in the communication sector yield astounding results so we assumed that Obasanjo’s magic wand in the power sector would also bring immediate results.

The Obasanjo regime invested heavily on power projects and he was well supported by some state governments’ investments in power plants. Subsequent regimes further deregulated the sector in their bid to fix the power problem. Sadly more than twenty years since the dream to get Nigeria twenty four hours electricity began, Nigerians are still crying over poor power supply.

It’s sad that Nigeria has lost a good number of companies to other nations around her. The consequences being that we have lost jobs and good foreign exchange as we have to import those goods we used to produce here. It’s sad that the huge investment on this sector has failed to yield any tangible results.

The Power Holding Company of Nigeria now seems to be esoterically living to its name. While we never expected power always with NEPA, the Power Holding Company are holding their power and they expect Nigerians to pay for what they have held back.

Since NEPA, the mentality with Nigerian power companies has been to steal from Nigerians. Nigerians have gotten used to paying bills for power they don’t use. We collect bills for months of darkness and we keep asking what criteria were used for the billing.

Nigerians won’t stop crying against these power companies and their representatives in the different regions who leverages on the monopoly they have to hoodwink fellow citizens into paying for what they don’t use.

We’ve been hearing about electronic billing system. We assumed that the government would provide the electronic billing meters when they initially introduced it. The Power Company had promised that they would fix these meters on millions of houses across Nigeria. The project was started and suddenly we heard that they couldn’t continue because the meters weren’t available. They realized that if they gave the meters for free and everyone had it, they’d not be able to exploit Nigerians like Nigerians are meant to always be exploited.

When the meter became available according to them, they placed a price tag on the meters making it difficult for the average Nigeria landowner to get one, therefore increasing how long they can continue to rip off Nigerians. And these meters are produced in Nigeria.

When the transformer becomes faulty, who pays for the repairs? Nigerians. When cables become bad, who pays for the cables? Nigerians. Communities even pay the engineers from the Power Companies to fix the light, the same job they are been paid to do.

With all the hell Nigerians are going through with their service, the power companies have decided to increase the tariff. Already we were having a bad time but now it’s going to be worse. We will be paying more for the same bad quality service being offered by these power companies.

The managers of these power companies and government representatives who back them think Nigerians are foolish or not sensible enough to know that they should get service for their money. These power companies should be aware that like every company, they are offering service and the quality of service should define the price of their service.

While they enjoy a monopoly over the power sector, they should realize that other home based energy options are fast rising. Today, solar power systems and wind systems are available and widely used and bio gas systems are becoming popular. Nigerians may soon be leveraging on them.

Already we are used to the hooting of generators every now and then and Nigerian businesses have already adapted to the high cost of running those generators. Who suffers are Nigerians to whom the extra cost of running these generators will be pushed to via increased cost of service.

Electricity affects everyone and every business. Nigerians deserve to get the best of service else we will be trying too hard to grow the economy. If the Nigerian economy must grow, the Nigerian government must get power right.