Recently, there were reports in which the authorities of the Nigerian Electric Regulatory Commission, NERC, projected that with the ongoing aggressive privatisation of the distribution of electricity to competent companies, the country would certainly attain 8,000mega watts next year. What that means is that power supplies will be more stable in the country thereby drastically reducing the chaotic business atmosphere orchestrated by epileptic power supply. However, given the inability of government to meet such ambitious projections in the past, Nigerians are wary of such hasty statements.
It is a fact that no country can develop or witness any significant growth without proportional growth in the power sector. Evidently, Nigeria provides a classic example. For instance, the World Bank estimates of 2010 ranked Nigeria among the 10 countries with the lowest kilowatt consumption per capita. Nigeria has 136kw per capita and the only countries that rank below Nigeria are Haiti 24kw, Ethiopia 54kw, Eritrea 52kw, Congo Democratic Republic 95kw, Nepal 93kw, Tanzania 78kw, Myanmar 131kw and only about 50.6 percent of Nigerians have access to electricity as compared to Ghana’s 60.5 percent, Pakistan’s 62.4 percent and Libya’s 99.8 percent.
Nigeria’s power sector has been left to stagnate and degenerate into such decadence that several lofty efforts made since 1999 seem to be a drop of water in the ocean. The requisite investment in the sector was criminally abandoned and there was no conscious plan to take a second look at the sector so as to arrest the decadence. When the present administration therefore came with the desire to reform the power sector, Nigerians heaved a sigh of ecstatic relief. The reforms have seen the lunching of the Power Sector Road Map, the unbundling of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, settlement of outstanding arrears of staff of PHCN and recently the sale of electricity distribution companies popularly called DISCOS.
The power sector privatisation re-commenced in earnest in August 2010, following the unveiling of a detailed roadmap for the power sector reform by President Goodluck Jonathan. The roadmap had stipulated that only 11 distribution companies and six generation companies would be fully privitised while the ownership of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, would be retained by the government but with private sector management, as articulated in the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005. The claim is that all these noble and notable efforts geared towards reviving and revamping the sector seems to have been yielding the needed dividends. The Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo said recently that by the middle of June this year, the country would migrate from the present 4,000 plus megawatts to 6,000 megawatts and likely to hit 10,000 by the end of the year.
While this sounds like good music to the ears of desperate Nigerians, as some stakeholders have observed, we have our hope and fears. For instance, all the good intentions of the present administration, notwithstanding, have the authorities put in place adequate mechanism towards ensuring that the exercise is not manipulated and the entire project derailed just like NITEL? Has the federal government done its sufficient checks so as to ensure that the distribution companies buying into the power project have the capacity to deliver in strict compliance to specifications of terms of agreement? It is also important to take a closer look at experts’ advice that some of the archaic laws hamstringing some states from generating and distributing power within the confines of their states should be reviewed so as to encourage more states participation in power generation and distribution. This will mean removing power from the exclusive list.
A reformed power sector will not only jumpstart the economy; it will also set it on the desired path of accelerated growth. It will help release and unleash the abundant socio-economic potentials that abound in the country.