More Megawatts, Less Power

It seems Nigeria’s power problem has defied all solutions. The more we hear about increased megawatts in the national grid, the more darkness the nation experiences.

Recently, the Power and Energy Minister, Prof. Barth Nnaji, announced an over 40 percent increase in power generation capacity.

Consequent upon that, Nigerians expected an unprecedented regularity in power supply. But that is not to be. Rather, the professor’s declaration is inconsistent with what is being experienced.

Power outages have tripled. Reasons for the blackouts are given at the discretion of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). Businesses and private lives have been disrupted without redemption.

Only recently, in fact, late last year, PHCN showed some sparks of seriousness when they supplied regular power upon completion of a major re-conducting project in Port Harcourt. That earned them encomiums.

We experienced about ten days of briskly interrupted power supply, and I thought that was good enough for a nation that could hardly afford uninterrupted power for a day.

But after a short time, we returned to status quo. Since then the situation has moved from bad to worse. We remain without power for days and weeks unend. The assurances we get of improved light are the well-known old re-cycled and failed promises.

I believe that if the power question is not addressed, the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan will not thrive. See what befalls us; industries are folding up and relocating to other countries. Manufacturing has dropped so drastically that it contributes a paltry two percent to the nation’s GDP. What this means is that it is costlier to manufacture goods here than to import them into the country.

We ought to realise that energy is the engine that drives industrialisation, which improves communication, helps innovation in science and technology, provides health care delivery system and improves citizens’ standard of living. Since energy is as important as that, a sound energy policy is imperative to create jobs in unexpected sectors.

The worst scenario for us is that the nation does not seem to know, even at present, its energy demands, how much more what it needs in a year, five years or even ten years to come; yet this is important for current and future development planning.

It stands to reason that energy is the force that drives the wheels of any economy. The efforts of Brazil,  Russia, India, and China (BRIC nations) to stimulate investment, growth and development have led to their tireless quest for reliable sources of energy.

In the same vein, Nigeria as a developing economy must seek to address this missing link in its quest to cater for its population of over 150 million people. But the meager megawatts generated by the nation’s power plant only leaves a lot to be desired.

Though I commend the efforts of the Federal Government in ensuring that power generation props up and their various projections of where the nation will be power-wise in the next few years, I refuse to thread along this path of optimistic forecasting.

In truth, I believe it is rather ambitious, utopian and unachievable. The forecasting or projections look like a scholastic approach to the energy problem in the country. For me it raises a myriad of questions.

While I am not in the mood to raise the questions, I, nevertheless, support any quest by the government for Nigeria to be self-reliant in energy production. But could the  minister of power explain why an increase in megawatts translates into an increase in power outages in the country?

Arnold Alalibo