Recently, the Federal
Government stirred the hope of Nigerians when it announced a new target of 6,000 megawatts  of electricity generation in the country.
At the 15th Herbert Macaulay Memorial Lecture, organized by the Faculty of Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Penultimate Saturday, the Minister of Power, Prof Chinedu Nebo, promised that the country would hit 6,000 megawatts in electricity generation before December this year.
The simplest interpretation of the minister’s pronouncement is that before the next six months, electricity generation which for the past four months has been struggling to stabilize at 3,500 megawats would catapult to 6,000 megawatts, which is a little less than 100 per cent increase. Quite a fear indeed, if actualized.
More than any administration, the present administration led by Dr Goodluck Jonathan has shown bold commitment in the development of the nation’s power sector through its reform agenda.
The administration inherited 2,250mw electricity generation during its inception under the then Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), and decayed infrastructure with power plants that hardly met half of their installed capacities.
But realizing that electricity remains the catalyst that could power the nation’s economy in its bid to actucalise its vision of becoming one of the first 20 economies of the world in 2020, it privatized the then PHCN by opening the market for interest foreign and local investors for efficiency.
Apart from privatizing PHCN, it embarked on massive repairs and upgrading of power plants across the country and had recently also disclosed its determination to embark on the longest gas pipeline project that would run from the South, through the West and to the Northern part of the country.
For a nation with the 9th biggest gas reserves in the world, abundant coal and hydropower potentials, growing interest in solar energy and huge power infrastructural development, achieving 6000mw target for her 170 million citizens should not attract any reasonable attention, after all.
Yet major challenges that may truncate the humble target of 6000 mw electricity generation set by the government are, the activities of callous vandals who vandalise with passion, oil and gas pipelines, including electricity transformers through which the electricity as the end point can get to the Nigerian masses.
Early this year, Federal Government successfully repaired the Escravos gas pipeline that was crippled by incessant vandalism and was able to raise generation to over 900mw, but while Nigerians were enjoying the improved power generation, the vandals attacked Trans-Forcados pipeline, leading to its being shut down thereby forcing the nation back to where it was.
The Managing Director of 4 Power Consortium recently lamented over the negative impact of transformer vandals to the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC).
He said an average of four transformers were being vandalized daily in Akwa Ibom State alone and noted that in the company’s effort to improve power generation to the people, the activities of the vandals to power facilities have become a challenge difficult to surmount. Infact, the MD even threatened that PHED was considering a shut down in the state.
According to Edevbie, the vandals have strong penchant for transformer oil which they consider to be lucrative.
Another company manager had also revealed that the vandals target the copper wire which they sell at cheap prices to some dealers who melt them for the production of earnings, necklaces and other jewelries.
Yet another obstacle to Nebo’s 6000 mw, target by December this year will also come from the mistrust between the former PHCN workers inherited by the new private investors.
The management of Power firms across the nation are being accused of power welfare of their staff and also not ready to tolerate unionism .
They are also accused of targeting staff who are interested in union matters. Just two weeks ago, the Nigeria Labour Congress in the South South had to picket PHEDC.
Among their reasons were nonpayment of the  severance package to some of the former PHCN workers which was part of the privatization processes casualisation of staff, as well as the new investors’ unwillingness to tolerate labour unions in their firms.
As a result of the frosty relationship, NLC sealed off all the offices of PHEDC in the four states it covers and only suspended the picketing when it assumed a violent dimension.
The new investors on their own parts complained of being weighed down by huge debt by customers who benefitted from their services. The MD of 4 Power accused the government of being the worst debtors and disclosed that through most of the parastatals and agencies, the government’s huge debt was frustrating the company’s operations.
So, while Nebo means well in his new target, as the representatives of the government,  it also behoves him to initiate ways and means through which government agencies that have become irresponsible debtors to the power companies to do well by offsetting their debts. Maybe, the better way of doing this is by designing ways of withdrawing directly from their subventions and allocations.
It is only when the huge debts owed the new power firms are paid that the ambitious 6000mw target could be actualisable.
It baffles the common masses when issue of non payment of severance packages resurfaces in view of the several hundreds of billions of Naira Federal Government said had been released to the PHCN former staff. Not minding whether the claims are right or wrong, the government should ensure the privatization process of the reform should be seen as a past stage that has been fairly concluded by those directly involved.
The Public must come to the reality of the fact that the new investors are in business solely for profit unlike before when government was in charge and electricity supply was viewed as a social services. As the tone has changed, so also should the dancing step change in order to match.
The community leaders and chiefs who for one reason or the other were not paying for electricity services supplied to them before must know that nobody other than them would pick their bills for services they enjoyed through the private firms.
The new call for re-orientation should as well as be approached with patience on the part of the new investors. The public must know that the investors have only recently taken over and therefore not expect the best which should come with time. In the other way round, the new investors should also be patient in their bid for profit maximization since their publics and customers need to adjust their with time.
The investors should do themselves good by developing a framework that could engender good relationship with their workers by way of embracing unionism because, it is a reality they can not run away from as long as their operations are in line with the nation’s constitution.
On the part of the consumers, of both classes, the investors must consider attractive Corperate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to engender and sustain cordial and harmonious relationship with them.
Such CSR initiatives would be of huge benefit to the power firms as they would need to collaborate with the public especially in protecting their facilities since frosty relationship may not be able to drive such collaboration.
With these steps, and better protection of pipelines  through involvement of the natives, 6000mw could be attained by December.

Chris Oluoh

Minister of State for Power, Mr Mohammed Wakil (right) and Team Leader of American Investors, Mr Roy Tefeez, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on power in Abuja, recently. With them is Director, Legal Services, Ministry of Power, Mrs Adedotun Shoetan. Photo: NAN