KENNETH’S KREATIVITY KONFETTI: Creativity & Innovation – What Has Nigeria’s Chronic Electricity Shortage Got To Do With Creativity and Innovation

By Kenneth Nwabudike Okafor

The blog posts on Nigeria’s perennial chronic electricity shortages and blackouts generated lots of buzz. 

In case you missed the posts see here and here.

Nigerians poured out their frustrations in mails and Nigeria in diaspora who had not visited recently or got news from home were shocked at the levels of the problems particularly with the NIPP projects which were supposed to be bridging the electricity shortages. Friends of the blog who were not Nigerians confessed they did not properly weight the problems.

The posts from several sources: NAIJAGRAPHITTI BLOG research, PREMIUM TIMES Editorial on Nigeria’s electricity challenges & the APC as well as an investigative report from The National, a leading national newspaper.

Perhaps what generated the most buzz was the idea of creating an innovation prize/grant on NIGERIA’S ELECTRIC POWER CHALLENGE (possible name?), open to all eligible people to apply in order to spur inventors, engineers and conceptualists to seize hold of the opportunity of this national malaise to create machines, inventions and concepts which can help overcome the power problems.

LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT I BELIEVE IN THIS POSSIBILITY.

I had at some point in the last four years I was involved with a community-based electric power project at management level. The project which was funded and supported by two European donor bodies and a multinational oil company in Nigeria and other stakeholders was based on the notion of utilizing qualitative non-associated gas from oil extraction operations to power microturbines which would then generate power. The community in question was then to set up an electricity distribution company, create an electric power distribution network and collect fees for electricity distributed from residents. I was not involved with the project to its logical conclusion though so I am uncertain of its present status. But this is just one example of the possibilities and the potentials.

I KNOW WE CAN COME UP WITH SEVERAL OTHERS VARIETIES OF FEASIBLE OPTIONS.

What has electricity got to do with a blog on CREATIVITY and INNOVATION? PLENTY APPARENTLY.

Let me explain.

NAIJAGRAPHITTI aims to promotion rising creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Now can you think of a better way to push this three core aims in one single project than pitching for ideas to help overcome Nigeria’s electricity headache?

Let me refer to what Consultancy Africa Intelligence wrote about Nigeria recently:

On a single day in early April 2014, Nigeria’s GDP for 2013 was revised upward by 89% to US$ 510 billion as a result of a much-anticipated rebasing of the economy from 1990 to 2010. Rebasing, a typical event in the statistical life of economies, involves inflation adjustments as well as accounting for economic and industrial changes. Nigeria’s rebasing acknowledges the role of the sizeable telecommunications and services industries that have developed in the last two decades as well as that of the informal sector. In addition, rebasing corrects impossible earlier assumptions, for example, that three quarters of the Nigerian labour force is employed in agriculture.

While, clearly, little of significance in Nigeria’s real economy changed on the day the rebasing took effect, the psychological impact of Nigeria becoming Africa’s largest economy is significant. (Italics added) 

One of the primary reasons why there was little change in Nigeria’s real economy on the day the rebasing took effect include the fact that Nigeria’s effort at generating enough electricity to power industrialization and manufacturing which would help diversify the economy is far below optimal levels.

Some countries take electricity for granted but Nigeria cannot.  There are tonnes of reports from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria) and the several other research bodies who present strong proof that without sorting out the power shortages Nigeria can truly not grow and diversify her economy in a meaningful way.

In essence, Nigeria’s perennial chronic electricity problem is one issue which requires creative and innovative solutions to overcome. And at NAIJAGRAPHITTI we are more than willing to encourage those willing to take up the challenge, to make a push for every positive possibilities.

It is worth the try!