Nigeria: Will Darkness Continue Forever?

By Adanu Moses

The power sector in Nigeria is no doubt one of the most inefficient in meeting the needs of its consumers anywhere in the world. The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which before now was a wholly government-owned venture before it was sold to private entities was the organisation governing the use of electricity in Nigeria. Renamed PHCN, it was formerly the National Electric Power Authority (abbreviated NEPA).

For a better part of power generation history in Nigeria, consumers have experienced more power outages than supply. This accounts for why Nigerians humorously represented the acronyms NEPA and PHCN to mean -Never Expect Power Always, Please Hold Your Candle Now. For a better share of history, Nigerians have also blamed the power outages on the distribution companies, saying they are in the habit of always holding onto power and releasing only the bills. This is one of the stack truths and another is the fact that Nigerians seem to have gotten themselves used to the incessant power outages.

This leaves an inquisitive mind asking, who is to blame? Considering the history of system failures in Nigeria, can we say the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is actually holding unto the power? The simple answer is not farfetched. There is no power to hold unto.

At the end of 2014, according to statistics gathered by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, Nigeria, the country had an installed power generation capacity of 8,000 MW.But only 4,000 MW was being fed into the national grid. Several reasons were given for this huge difference between capacity and actual generation but the reasons do not reduce the energy need of the country which is ever on the increase. As at the end of 2015, the electricity need of Nigeria stood above 40,000 MW and research says 192,000 MW will be needed by 2030. With this huge gap, 80 per cent of the population is left in darkness.