10th December, 2012
Not quite long after Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was sworn in as President, following the death of Umaru Yar’Adua, the new government left no one in doubt about its thinking on the thoroughly embarrassing inefficiency in Nigeria’s power sector. It was taking too long to fix the electricity problem and things actually got so bad that Nigeria, statistically speaking, became the preferred destination for ships conveying all kinds of generators to this part of the world. Efforts by a succession of previous administrations to tackle the electricity needs of the country yielded very little. The darkness in Nigeria persisted and the problems of the power sector seemed too difficult to tackle. What was to be done? First, Jonathan inaugurated his now famous Power Reform Roadmap which he personally flagged off – in a flamboyant ceremony – in Lagos. To many Nigerians, that was the day that our President declared war against persistent darkness in Nigeria, an ugly phenomenon that has held back and substantially frustrated efforts to develop Nigeria and grow its economy.
When he established a Presidential Task Force on Power, PTFP, with Professor Barth Nnaji, a known industry hand, as its chief helmsman, the signal was out that this time around, the problem of the power sector in Nigeria was about to be given a serious knock. And it soon became clear that Jonathan’s power reform agenda was anchored, in my view, on three visible platforms: completion of the NIPP projects inherited from the Obasanjo era; improving installed capacity in the areas of generation, transmission and distribution. And sustaining the growth, if any, in availability of electricity in the country. Since then, different kinds of efforts – including Mr. President’s participation at the weekly meetings on power when Nnaji was the boss at PTFP – have been deployed to bring about changes in the sector. The achievements of the Task Force may have led to the elevation of Nnaji as a cabinet minister in-charge of power by Mr. President. In other words, the PTFP team was delivering on its mandate.
The unbundling of the notoriously unpopular and inefficient Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, expectedly brought government and electricity unions on a collision course. The unions wanted the status-quo maintained and for Nigeria to remain ‘the darkest country in the world’, while the Task Force on Power and Nnaji, now a minister, had presidential order to team up with the National Council on Privatisation and construct a framework for the divestment, concession and management contracting of the 18 companies billed to take over the functions of a rapidly dying PHCN. My investigations for months proved, if any proof was needed, that the mafia at the PHCN would definitely fight and may resist the many changes that the power reform programme was putting on the table. And it was clear enough: reverse the national embarrassment which the power holding company largely represents, unbundle it and give electricity to the Nigerian people. The presidential mandate was clear.
Over time, things began to look up and the new 18 companies that would take over, in spite of resistance from the unions, particularly the faction led by one Joe Ajaero, started positioning themselves for business. So, when the Canadian firm, Manitoba Hydro International, finally won the contract to handle the transmission end of the power reform programme of Mr. President, many Nigerians felt that, at last, the big step had been taken, and it was a matter of time for constant electricity, which smaller and poorer African countries take for granted, to be at their door step. But this optimism is currently suffering in impact. The PTFP, now headed by another tested and tried industry hand and a perfect replacement and successor to Nnaji, Engr. Beks Dagogo-Jack, needs to be busy in the critical months that lie ahead. This is not the time to lose focus or dynamism. It is time to deploy the sound technical team that is available within the Task Force, and which made it possible to achieve so much under Nnaji.
But why has generation dropped so rapidly? What is really happening? Has PHCN regained lost ground? Is the Ministry of Power becoming more powerful than the Presidential Action Committee on Power and the Task Force itself? And does the ministry not realise that its previous regulatory and marketing duties have now been transferred to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission? Is it true that the Presidential Action Committee on Power has also suffered some injuries, following the whittling-down of its power, which its counterpart, the PTFP, appears also to be victim of, in the hands of the bulldozing Federal Ministry of Power that seems determined to appropriate all the powers that the PHCN has been compelled to cede to superior agencies and successor companies?
Whatever is the case, and by whatever parameters it is measured, the power reform programme is suffering from acute constipation, not because Professor Nnaji is no longer at the PTFP or the ministry, but because the President’s own creations – PACP, PTFP and NERC – which he, on inauguration, publicly mandated to execute his power reform programme with minimum distractions from the power ministry, appear now to be departments of the power ministry. Investigations and inquiries at the successor companies that are billed to take over from PHCN, and interviews with key players at the new organisations, reveal tacit intimidation by the ministry. For instance, the 18 companies are compelled to report their activities weekly to the ministry of power, attend unnecessarily long “civil service meetings that have no technical content” – all on the ‘orders’ of the ministry. A director at one of the successor companies said to me: “The ministry summons us for meetings even when we have been told that it does not have the power to arrange such meetings. We are intimidated into attending those meaningless and unproductive meetings that completely add no value to our power generation and supply chain.”
The truth and the danger, of course, is that Mr. President may not be able fulfil his pledge to Nigerians that by the middle of next year, 2013, electricity in Nigeria would be steady and constant and that Nigerians will “dash” away their generators because “we won’t need them anymore” (quoting President Jonathan). Mr. President needs to move fast, if he must save the bad situation: He must call the ministry of power and the dying PHCN – whose requiem we are all waiting anxiously to sing, as we did for the buried NITEL – because, obviously, they are the wrong vehicles to deliver electricity to Nigerians. Jonathan will win the war against darkness in Nigeria, but he must no longer appear indecisive or short in ideas, if he re-asserts his confidence in his own creations – the PACP, PTFP and NERC – and encourages them to unleash their technical and administrative teams on the power reform efforts, the collective efforts that made power growth possible some months ago.
If electricity is the only legacy that the Jonathan administration will leave behind and be remembered for, so be it.
•Kanayo Esinulo, [email protected]