By Adekunle Adekoya
On Wednesday, the national power grid managed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, collapsed for the 11th time in 2024, leaving the country in complete blackout. Some people said that it wasn’t the 11th but the 12th time, on the average, a collapse of once a month.
Data from the National System Operator, NSO, showed that as of 2pm that day, none of Nigeria’s 26 power plants was on the grid.
By Casmir Igbokwe
Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose’s brother trended on the social media recently. The outrageous amount of money he pays as electricity tariff every week was the crux of the matter. Some Nigerians apparently thought he was joking in the video where he claimed his weekly electricity bill was N100,000. And this is for three rooms. He said he used to spend this N100,000 in one month.
Fayose is not alone. All electricity consumers on Band A category are feeling the same pinch. Simply put, what they used to spend on electricity in one month is now spent in one week. What happened was that the Federal Government increased electricity tariff for these Band A customers on April 3, 2024. From N68 per kilowatt-hour, the tariff went up to N225 per kWh, an increase of over 200 per cent. These B and A customers reportedly have electricity at least 20 hours in a day. Customers on Band B, C, D and E do not have to worry about the increase in tariff for now as they are not affected in this pilot phase. The plan is to co-opt them into the tariff-hike prison within a period of three years.
By Adekunle Adekoya
I have zeroed in on electricity in the last few editions of this column because of the anxiety I harbour that our dear country, Nigeria, needs to get it right as soon as possible; before those that have gotten it right transmogrify into behemoths that can swallow us up. I had finished writing the last edition, with the headline: ‘Frequent national grid collapse: Time we took another hard look’, when the Federal Government empowered the electricity sector to announce new tariffs, ostensibly for affluent users, those said to be in Band A.
Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, had earlier in the year hinted of this development when he said that subsidy payments in the electricity sector by the Federal Government is not sustainable. I disagreed with him, because that would mean Nigerians will be paying higher prices for a service that at best, for the majority, remains epileptic. In addition, Nigerians are yet to see any initiative on the part of government that indicates we can expect better, improved services in terms of power supply.
By Olu Fasan
One of the popular myths around Bola Tinubu, stemming from his time as governor of Lagos State, was that he had an uncanny ability to pick competent teams of technocrats to run the affairs of state. Indeed, some genuinely wanted Tinubu to be president and “run Nigeria as he ran Lagos.” But the myths have busted since he became president. Not only has he muddled through policy after policy, the famed gift for talent-spotting gravely eluded him as he unveiled a middling cast of ministers, characterised by two fundamental flaws.
First, Tinubu will have the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s political history. With 48 ministers and over 20 special advisers and senior special assistants, with cabinet-level status, Tinubu will have the most bloated and unwieldy cabinet of any past president.
