By Kenneth Nwabudike
Okafor
I am unhappy with the state of affairs with
Nigeria’s electricity; actually I am writing this post with the battery power
of the laptop rather than direct alternating current. Of course, that is
exactly what laptop’s battery reserve is for. The problem is that this is not
my choice. THERE IS NO ELECTRICITY. And I do not wish to switch on the power
generator because I had run it all day yesterday. Should it breakdown, I do not
trust that the mechanic available can handle this piece of machinery very well.
(In fact I suspect the generator repair man’s incompetence is part of the
reason the generator is aging faster aside from substandard parts and
protracted use). Things cannot continue like this!
I am displeased about Nigeria’s seemingly
interminable electricity problems. Forever, this issue has defied all attempts
to solve it. It is disheartening. When you hear that US$40 billion has been
expended on a problem over the course of sixteen or more years, you expect to
see some results. US$40 billion is the estimated amount which the Obasanjo,
Yar’Adua and Jonathan administration expended on tackling Nigeria’s electricity
issues. But for all the expenditure Nigeria manages to generate only roughly
4,500 megawatts of electricity for the entire nation. This is scandalously
inadequate for a country of (estimated) 170 million.
For to you a better idea of the scale of the
problem Nigeria faces let me share the information with you that experts say
that South Africa with a population of 52.98 million (2013) million generates
about 40,000 megawatts and right now suffers serious electricity shortages.
South Korea with a population of 50.22 million (2013) generates about 60,000
megawatts of electricity.
Nigeria’s electricity problems have our leaders
stumped and stupefied literally it seems.
When Professor Chinedu Nebo was in charge of
Ministry of Power in the recent past Jonathan administration, he made a presentation in
London and gave a follow up interview in Nigeria that should have had his
principal worried. Speaking with newsmen in London in February 2015, the
minister said: “Nobody in the world can provide 24/7 electricity everywhere
in Nigeria. 160,000 megawatts would be needed to do that. The current capacity
is 4,500 megawatts. The cost of providing electricity per megawatt on average
is $2billion. To get to where South Africa is, you will need about $3.2trillion
(about N672trillion). Where will you find that kind of money?”
I have serious reservations about both the content
and implications of Professor Nebo’s assertions. Many people more qualified
than myself in the relevant issues he touched upon have since gone on to write
rejoinders to his comment back in February. But one pertinent observation I
wish to make here about what clearly came across about the Professor said was
that his comments, taken at face value, did not build the confidence of his
listeners (and by extension, the residents of Nigeria) that Nigeria’s
electricity problems could be tackled and solved. No, listening to him, you
come away with the sinking feeling that there simply was no way out of the
logjam. Now this typifies the response of most people in leadership positions
who have handled this issue in the past: they do one of three things: 1) be
economical with facts; 2) pontificate on the solutions; and/or 3) present the
problem as insurmountable.
Under Obasanjo’s administration the same
electricity problems made the government embark on building 10 Independent
Power Projects (NIPPs). A number of the power projects have since been
commissioned and are currently in service. Now do you know the new contention?
GAS! Yes, gas supply to the IPPs. The power plants are based on gas powered technologies/turbines.
Nigeria is supposed to have an overabundant supply
of gas, right? Wrong! Nigeria does not have an overabundant supply of gas. In
another post, I would share how I learned about the politics and realities of
gas supply and the lack of it which goes on behind the scenes. Aside, Nigeria
is flaring (poor quality gas must be flared) as well as selling gas abroad
through NLNG and West African Gas Pipeline Company. Actually sourcing gas has
been one of the core reasons keeping the Brass LNG Project from taking the FDI
step. Qualitative gas which is useful for gas turbines is not in overabundant
supply at all.
So where has Nigeria’s gas disappeared to? The
answer depends on who you ask. But one thing is certain Nigeria’s leaders
should have paid better attention to the electric power proposals which were
based on gas powered technology. They should have interrogated the proposals
and their proponents for alternatives and back up plans for gas shortages.
Nigeria’s electricity problem is costing you a
fortune as you read this. Yes, Sir/Ma, YOU. How? Simple. The African
Development Bank estimates that at least 40 percent of the cost of producing
goods and services in Nigeria is as a result of electric power generation by
the efforts of the goods and services producers/providers. Actually this is a
critical reason made-in-Nigeria goods and services are not competitive on the
regional and global markets. However in so many other ways Nigeria’s epileptic
power supply costs the residents. The electricity shortages rob people of their
lives literally; you pay exorbitant prices for everything; industries collapse
in the face of daunting power challenges; your health is compromised when you
cannot sleep well in sweltering and stuffy rooms; food spoilage due to electric
power failures which frustrates refrigeration; and so on and so forth.
Under the Jonathan administration, the electric
power privatization finally took place. I do not know your own experience, but
as for the area where I work from there is less electricity now than before the
privatization scheme. And I am aware many people share similar complaint. So
what happened? The long and short of it was that the electric power
privatization exercise was botched: People without the funds and know how
cornered state assets with bank loans. Since they were clueless in the first
place, they cannot handle power generation and transmission quite easily. Yes,
you guessed right; they did not realize what they were getting themselves into.
The same for the planners who agreed to gas technology without planning for
adequate gas supply.
Perhaps President Buhari has this covered? I am
willing to give the administration the benefit of doubt, but there is a BIG
caveat. A US-based news organization recently published the news of a
dissection of Buhari’s energy proposals and the reported concerns about the
feasibility of the plan which were raised. The purported energy plan requires serious
revisions in order to become more realizable and achievable than in its present
form. Now President must subject the energy plan with its forecasts and targets
to robust testing and validation in order to get his projections right.
Nigerians should not be lied to again.
Then there are some people whose opinion and words
should be reviewed and learning should take place after the review. We do not
need to call names here. Let us find these people and obtain what relevant and
useful inputs they have. Consult widely and sensibly.
The greatest delusional thinking on the face of the
earth right now is the idea that Nigeria would become one of the 20 most
advanced countries in the world by the year 2020. This cannot be achieved with
the woeful electricity situation.
I may be unhappy BUT I am not discouraged. And I
have decided not to seat idly by. So I am proposing a challenge for our
inventive minds in Nigeria by calling for: FEASIBLE ELECTRICITY-GENERATION IDEAS
FOR OVERCOMING NIGERIA’S ELECTRIC POWER PROBLEMS.
LET US INVENT BOLD, CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE
MACHINE, PROCESSES AND CONTRAPTIONS FOR GENERATING AFFORDABLE ELECTRICITY TO
POWER OUR INDUSTRIES AND SMALL SCALE ENTERPRISES IN COMMUNITIES, TOWNS, CITIES
AND STATES. LET US LIGHT NIGERIA UP FOR PROSPERITY AND PROGRESS.
Are you up for it? Do you have the inventive capacity
to rise up to this challenge? Tell somebody about it and encourage them if you
cannot!
WHY CAN UNINTERRUPTED ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BECOME
OUR INALIENABLE RIGHT IN NIGERIA?
We should seek sponsors to back up the undertaking,
perhaps with a cash prize or some other incentive scheme.
Meanwhile let me reproduce, out of several fitting
write ups, the editorial comments of PREMIUM TIMES of May 5, 2015 which puts
the argument in focus forcefully and factually:
EDITORIAL:
Electricity and the APC Agenda
Premium Times May 5, 2015 EDITORIAL:
Electricity and the APC Agenda
Last
year, the Government told Nigerians that it had rolled out a “pragmatic and
creative” short term approach to address challenges in the power sector,
particularly the issue of inadequate gas supply to thermal generation plants
across the country. The new measures were expected to ramp up power generation
and supply in the country by at least 5,000 megawatts (MW) within four months.
The measures were announced during an inter-ministerial press briefing
involving the ministries of petroleum resources, power, Nigerian Electricity
Regulatory Commission (NERC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), among others. It was just
another empty promise that things would soon improve.
Last week, the electricity supply
officially announced was still only 2,800 megawatts. There has been nothing
said about the plan to fast-track the development of additional gas supply
sources which will in the short term result in an addition of at least 370
million metric cubic feet per day of gas to the power plants as promised.
Neither do we know more about the announced engagement by the CBN and the
Bankers’ Committee to setup a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to offset about N25
billion outstanding legacy gas related debts owed to gas suppliers by the
defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), so that the perennial problem
of low electricity production would not continue into 2015. The formal promise
that Nigeria would enjoy at least 5,000 MW of electricity by the end of 2014
did not come to pass.
PREMIUM TIMES recalls that on February 19, 2008, the late President Umaru
Musa Yar’Adua had launched the Presidential Committee on the Accelerated
Expansion of Power. He promised Nigeria that 18-months from that date, Nigeria
would be producing at least 6,000 MW of power – that was by August 2009.
Nigerians should have challenged Yar’Adua at that time because during the 2007
election campaigns, Obasanjo’s promise to Nigerians was that by December 2007,
his NIPP projects would be producing at least 6,000 megawatts of electricity.
So the promise of 6,000 MG for 2007 was shifted to 2009. President Yar’Adua
explained that the reason that President Obasanjo’s power supply project failed
was that sufficient preparation for gas supply was not made. The Yar’Adua
accelerated plan were designed to ensure that there would be abundant gas
supply by August 2009. President Yar’Adua then went on to promise us that we
were on course to enjoy 20,000 megawatts of electricity within two years.
Going further back, the late Bola Ige,
as Minister of Power and Steel had promised Nigerians in June 1999 that by
2001, there would be so much electricity produced in Nigeria that those with
private generators would regret the investment they made as they would have no
need for it and neither would it have second hand value as no one else would
need it. These repeated promises show a number of things; first is that the
quantum of the promise has been declining rapidly and what we were being
promised in 2014 was what should have been delivered by 2001. Nigerians have
been lied to and deceived by successive PDP Administrations, as is the case
with the electricity supply that everyone needs but is never provided. It is
imperative that the incoming Buhari Administration finds out who stole all
these monies that would have provided sufficient electricity for Nigerians.
What is known is that a big chunk of
the missing funds was lost to the NIPP jamboree. The focus was on only one
issue – mega contracts for generation without any focus on looking at the
entire electricity value chain. The approach has been to define the problem as
insufficient generation and leave out other deficiencies in the value chain, in
particular the non-availability of gas and transmission constraints. The PDP
Governments have also further complicated the problem through its privatisation
programme that has resulted in sub-optimal outcomes due to corruption and
impunity. For example, it is known that the Enugu Distribution Company was
awarded to Emeka Offor when the institutions responsible for evaluating his bid
had been on public record saying he failed the technical qualification hurdle.
It was clear that Vice President,
Namadi Sambo, insisted on the selling it to him knowing full well he did not
have the capacity to run it. Indeed, the whole electricity arena has become one
of the biggest cesspools of corruption in the country. Sources indicate that
currently, two major IPPs have been prevented from moving to site because
demands for bribes by key ministers had not been paid. There are also reports
that the all-powerful Minister for Petroleum Resources has diverted much of the
financial allocations for gas development. Very little work has also been done
on the development of electricity transmission. Furthermore, some of the
age-old problems, like MDAs not paying their electricity bills, even though
monies are provided in the budget, remain.
PREMIUM TIMES believes that a completely new approach to the electricity
provision question should be adopted. We certainly need to produce more
electricity, and the various on-going projects should be completed with the
urgency that the problem deserves. We need to diversify our modes for the
production of electricity. Our national strategy should be one of universal
access to electricity by all citizens. We need to downplay the push for more
megawatts and develop a multifaceted approach. This requires a shift from a one
approach policy of delivering mega-projects to including a safer approach of
promoting smaller, more localised initiatives that are quicker and easier to
roll out and will help the government garner public trust. The rapid extension
of solar power is extremely important in this regard.
The sun is our biggest source of energy
and the technology to tap it effectively and cheaply exists today. Very cheap
solar devices can, for example, solve the problem of lighting and charging
phones in rural areas. If the power sector problem was approached from the
perspective of “what do people actually need” rather than “what big projects
can we spend money on”, we might be more effective in meeting the needs of
Nigerians.
PREMIUM TIMES
draws the attention of the in-coming APC Administration against a single focus
on mega-projects. Party leaders have already started promising the addition of
4,000 megawatts each year, which is unrealistic. Nigerians are fed up of empty
promises. The Obasanjo and Yar’Adua Administrations were misled by contractors
who assured them that they could deliver on mega-projects and failed. Maybe
they were not deceived and knew the mega-projects would fail but that before
the failure, they would get their cuts. Let’s change course by placing the
needs of people, rather than contractors at the centre of our power agenda.
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