Time To Face The Electricity Quagmire

Will Nigerians ever have uninterrupted power supply? The question has become a recurring decimal since the mid 1970s when power outage surfaced in Nigeria.

The last time Nigerians enjoyed uninterrupted power supply was in the early 70s. Since then, it has been a roll downhill.

Industries have closed down; the quality of life has dipped and generators, those carbonmonoxide spewing machines, have ruled our lives.

Successive governments have promised to tackle the electricity problem all to no avail while generator merchants have flooded the Nigerian market with their machines, sowing death, in some instances and poisoning the populace all over.

Billions of dollars have been spent with no result in sight and more billions may still go down the drain if government does not step up its act and actually tackle the problem.

Who will save Nigeria? Should we call back our colonial masters to solve this seemingly insurmountable problem?

Who will save Nigeria? The least problem of other nations is our biggest headache this side of the Sahara.

Are we jinxed? We do not think so. We believe the electricity supply problem is the result of inept leadership. If the military regimes could not solve the problem, what has democratic rule done, if not worsen the situation?

If South Africa can generate up to 45,000 megawatts of electricity and even export some of it, what is wrong with Nigeria doing the same, even if we have to beg them to come to our aid? Does this mean that the blackman, Africans, especially cannot do anything right?

And just as we are licking our wounds and making the best of a bad situation, fuel scarcity hits, diesel prices hit the sky and government wants to double electricity charges, even when no electricity is being provided. We wonder again: what is wrong with us?

Gradually, Nigeria is drifting towards inevitable chaos and instability.

Poverty is grinding the masses to dust and those paid to rule us seemed unmindful of the situation. Do we need to experience a violent revolution before the leadership sits up?

Last week, citizens of Senegal went on the rampage due to power outage. They were tired of the inability of their government to provide uninterrupted power supply and they thus registered their feelings. Maybe it can’t happen here, maybe it won’t happen here but we need to tackle this problem once and for all if this country must survive economically.

The cost of doing business in Nigeria is high due to poor infrastructure. Nobody wants to produce goods and services nobody would buy, hence manufacturers would prefer countries where infrastructure is not a challenge.

Our generator-run economy cannot compete with others, let’s stop fooling ourselves.

Those advocating for the deregulation of everything are not looking deep enough. Big as it is, the United States still subsidises agriculture and its citizens are the better for it.

If government cannot guarantee electricity supply and yet wants to fully deregulate the petroleum sub-sector, where do we get fuel to power our generators when prices of petroleum products hit the sky? Must the people suffer because the government seems incapable of doing anything right?

What is wrong with burying our heads in shame and approaching countries that have got it right to help us solve our electricity challenges? Is Nigeria too proud to agree it really has a problem?

What is the use of unbundling the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, if we cannot generate electricity?

It is time to look beyond rhetoric and face the problem. What happened to the Road Map for electricity generation launched with glee last year? President Goodluck Jonathan should tackle this problem once and for all. If electricity is the only problem he solves during his tenure, his name would go down in history as the man who achieved something, after all Governor Lateef Jakande still remains the man who built houses for the masses in Lagos.