If former President Goodluck
Jonathan had succeeded in solving the ever-worsening electricity crisis in Nigeria , he would have left office last May as
one of Nigeria ’s greatest leaders. And that is, assuming that
singular feat would not have been able to reelect him by deflating the strong,
vicious and clearly unedifying campaign bolstered by unrealistic promises
massively deployed against him by the opposition.
*Jonathan and Buhari
Granted, the Olusegun Obasanjo
regime, allegedly, squandered some $16 billion to plunge the country deeper
into darkness, but Jonathan is no Obasanjo, and I doubt if his ambition was to
come into office to reenact the Obasanjo disaster. Jonathan’s failure,
therefore, to realize the strategic role of electricity in the life of modern
man and demonstrate that five years was enough for him to write his name in
gold by lighting up the country is the key reason, I think, he left office with
his head bowed, despite his very noble act of conceding defeat to President
Muhammadu Buhari, thus aborting the desperation of those waiting in the wings
to exploit the situation to unleash terrible mayhem in the country and waste
drums of innocent blood.
The
problem, I think is that, President Jonathan really stretched political naivety
far beyond its malleable limit when he failed to realise that the regime of
darkness and unspeakable extortion unleashed on Nigerians by the private
operators currently generating and distributing electricity in Nigeria was
gradually exerting some influence on the way Nigerians perceived his
government. Those companies appeared to have conspired to work extremely hard
to further compound his already growing image problems and deepen grave
disaffection against him among the populace. And no one should have realized it
better than the former president that such a situation was too harmful to be
allowed to endure, especially, on the eve of a very bitterly contested
election. But Jonathan and his party were insufferably complacent and took
several things for granted until a devastating defeat was served him like an
unexpected, unappetizing breakfast.
It would seem
that he realized only too late in the day (assuming he ever did) that he was facing a peculiar kind
of opposition: one which, though, pitiably lacking in brighter ideas or better
preparation for governance (as Nigerians are already witnessing), appeared more
adept in chronicling and magnifying the failings of his government. And so, it
was easy for them to promise largely unrealistic alternatives and got sizable
number of people to buy into their grand illusion that the only solution to Nigeria ’s
many problems was just the exit of Jonathan.
*Obasanjo
Now,
unlike what obtained when the telecommunications sector was deregulated and the
people soon derived some bit of relief when NITEL’s monopoly was broken (and
alternatives sprang up), the emergence of these private operators, rather than
mitigate, only multiplied the people’s sorrows. The consumer is denied the power
of choice. Nigerians who live in a particular area are left with a very
frustrating feeling that they are stuck with a particular company whose staff
merely sit in their offices and allocate huge bills to them every month whether
electricity is supplied or not. The system is so oppressively chaotic that even
when they disconnect a consumer from their epileptic electricity supply, their
fat bills would still be coming – which the person must pay, before they would
ever reconnect him. Clearly, the bills are arbitrarily concocted.
But
in the telecoms sector, something refreshingly different obtains. If, for
instance, one is not satisfied with the services of a provider, one can easily
discard its SIM card and go for another. Thus, in order to retain its customers,
the various companies are continually rolling out incentives and packages. But
the electricity companies are fully aware that their hapless customers are
stuck with them unless they relocate from the areas under their control
(something not very easy to do in a place like Lagos , for example). And so, the people are
their helpless, perpetual victims.
Some
relief would have come to consumers through the acquisition of pre-paid meters, but that, too, is another
very bitter story not worth recollecting.
Although they would readily tell you that it would take only forty-five
(45) days to process a pre-paid meter, those who applied for them about six
months ago are still waiting to be supplied. And as they wait, the huge bills
keep arriving.
Of
course, we are all aware how poor electricity supply severely punishes the
citizenry. Costs of goods and services skyrocket as a result of the high cost
of production. Some companies not able to cope with rising operational costs
are forced to shed some weight by laying off workers or even close down or
relocate to other countries where functional amenities provide favourable
climate for business.
(pix: tvc)
It
must be observed, though, that electricity crisis is no longer an exclusive
Nigerian problem. Only recently, Ghanaians took to the streets to protest the
worsening power supply in their country. This is very sad because only a few
years ago, we used to challenge Nigeria ’s
leaders with Ghana ’s
success story in the generation and supply of electricity.
Even
a most unlikely place like South
Africa is having its own fair share of
electricity crises. In February, the Financial Times of London carried a
report about “a deepening power crisis that has triggered
almost daily outages across South Africa, hitting key industries as well as
households, [and forcing] the government to sharply downgrade its growth forecast for the year.”
In 2008 when I visited South Africa , such a thing was
never heard of, or, perhaps, ever imagined. Not once throughout my stay did I
hear the noise of a power generating set.
If
African countries must pull themselves up and compete effectively in a
globalised economy, they must all hasten to get electricity right. Virtually every human activity can be
enhanced or marred depending on the rate of power supply in the area. From big
industrial concerns to very small enterprises like barbing salons or the pepper
grinder in that small market, electricity continues to play pivotal roles in
our lives. Even the performance of school children is highly affected by the
amount of electricity available in the neigbourhood. A growing number have
developed eye problems, which would not have ordinarily happened so early in
their lives if they were not compelled to read in poorly lit rooms due to
constant blackouts.
Daily, many Nigerians
battle with heat and discomfort all night and report to work the next day
totally exhausted and drained of strength, and probably nursing a headache. No
doubt, this would adversely affect their output at work. And due to the
proliferation of all sorts of generators as unhealthy but unavoidable
alternatives to darkness, which torment the people with injurious noise and emit
very poisonous fumes into the atmosphere, thereby,
turning Nigeria into a
dangerous gas chamber, the country and its citizens remain under the threat of serious
epidemic. It is most demoralizing watching hapless, pathetic Nigerians cruelly
enveloped in darkness, groping like very helpless people trapped in a danger-infested
night.
Now,
it is a known fact that during each rainy season, there is usually some
improvement in electricity supply as currently being witnessed by Nigerians.
But instead of deploying solid effort to increase the amount of electricity
generation and distribution in the country, the government may naively choose
to sit still and start announcing this development as one of its “great
achievements.” That would amount to repeating the folly of previous
administrations which had also done that forgetting that the rains would soon
go away and they would run out of lies trying to explain away the biting
reality that would dawn with the sudden return of darkness.
One
hopes that this electricity matter is one of President Buhari’s topmost
priorities, and that despite all the noise and desperation to heap the blames
for all Nigeria’s problems on the last regime, he should find time to learn
from Obasanjo and Jonathan’s power sector report card and ensure that we would
not end up still telling the same sad stories of woes and decay after four years
of “change”.
And
while APC spokesman, Mr. Lai Mohammed, buys him some reprieve by continuing to
repeat the horrendous lie that Buhari’s phantom achievements since May have
surpassed all that Jonathan recorded in five years, and Obasanjo is very busy
at the other end of town recklessly tarring everybody and brazenly dressing
himself up with some borrowed and grossly ill-fitting saintly robes, the
president should school himself to realize that whether he would end up on the
rubbish heap of history or occupy a hall of fame would largely depend on the
amount of electricity he made Nigerians to have in their homes and places of
business during his tenure. It is one responsibility he cannot afford to shirk
or paper over with bogus claims. Like Chinua Achebe once said, “If Nigeria is working, we will know.”
*Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye is a columnist with Daily
Independent newspaper, Lagos (scruples2@hotmail.com)
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