Overcoming The Power Sector Challenge

By Robert Obioha

The recent drop in electricity generation from 4,959 to 2,662 megawatts in January this year is an indication that the power sector challenge is seemingly intractable. It also shows that more work should be done to revamp the power sector and give Nigerians stable power supply. The 2,662 megawatts currently being supplied pale into insignificance when compared to our energy need of over 30,000 megawatts. We should emulate South Africa’s power generation capacity. South Africa, with lesser population than Nigeria, generates over 40,000 megawatts of electricity.

The development also shows that the power sector reforms have not been able to meet the aspirations of Nigerians. In fact, the power sector reforms so far have not significantly affected the generation and supply of electricity. It points out that the privatization programme still needs to be fine-tuned and the grey areas revisited.

Perhaps, the current power outage is the worst we have had so far in the last couple of years. The absence of steady power supply in the country is affecting manufacturing of goods and general business. Most business concerns in the country depend on generators for their power needs. This leads to high cost of production and invariably higher prices of finished products.

Poor power supply has also exacerbated the level of the nation’s underdevelopment. This situation is not helping cottage industries and small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) that depend on power for their effective operations. Companies that depend on their own source of power supply are likely to downsize when the business is not booming as in this period of economic recession.

This can possibly explain why the nation’s unemployment figure has, as at last count, risen to 13.3 percent while inflation is 19 percent. The power outage is so bad that Eko and Ikeja Discos in Lagos now receive about 200 and 206 megawatts of electricity respectively instead of former supply of 1,500 and 2,000 megawatts.  The current power outage, according to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, is caused by liquidity problem, gas pipelines vandalism and inadequate transmission infrastructure.

When Will The World Defeat This Menace?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

On May 31 every  year, 'World No Tobacco Day' (WNTD) is marked across the world. The theme for the 2015 campaign is: “Stop Illicit Trade Of Tobacco Products.” 

First observed in 1987 following a motion passed by a cabinet of the World Health Assembly (WHA) which received the tacit support of the World Health Organisation (WHO), May 31 has since then been devoted to global campaigns and efforts to significantly reduce (which, I believe, will eventually lead to the total elimination of) the production, distribution and consumption of tobacco which not only ruins the health of its users, but also exposes every other person to serious harm by polluting the air we all breathe.

This is most worrisome given, for instance, a recent study published in the British medical journal, Lancet, which contains the chilling discovery that second-hand smoking (that is, passive smoking by people who are in the same environment with smokers) claims about 600,000 lives annually. 

More disturbing is the revelation that a third of these unfortunate victims are hapless children who inhale poisonous cigarette fumes from their parents or other family members who are smokers. Even much more disturbing is the discovery that as much as six million people die every year from what is regarded as the “global tobacco epidemic.”

Every year, when the World No Tobacco Day  is observed across the world, some definite objectives are targeted. This year’s campaign focused on achieving the following: