Electricity,
globally, is to national development what blood is to the human body.
It’s a major stimulant and the bedrock for enhanced productive capacity.
So fundamental is electricity that it is indispensable to our daily
living.
Unfortunately, challenges in this critical sector
appear to have defied all logical solutions in the Nigerian context. At
the outset of the new democratic dispensation, the readily available
excuse was the long neglect of the sector by successive military juntas
in terms of developmental expenditure and maintenance in budgetary
allocations.
Today, one and half decades into
democratic rule, the story remains the same. Government expenditure in
the sector has not been encouraging, with just about $10bn, out of which
$8bn came from the National Integrated Power Project. That means,
direct government expenditure in the troubled power sector in all of
these years is just $2bn despite the huge amount of money at the
disposal of the Nigerian government. It’s not surprising that Nigeria
has only earned herself less power availability, massive job loss and
spiralling unemployment, loss in public collaterals to private entities
and massive de-industrialisation.
Twenty five years ago, the
country’s power generating capacity was about 6,000 megawatts. This
fact, will, no doubt, shock many Nigerians and throw up the question:
“How did we get to this sorry state?” The answer is not farfetched.
Infrastructural decay, sheer negligence and corruption are the major
factors.
At this point in history, it’s crucial and urgent that
we take a critical look from outside into the black box called the
Nigerian power sector. Aviation experts are quite familiar with this
procedure after each crash. So, we can borrow this analogy from them to
chart the path for this discourse.
In trying to put into
perspective where we are today, we also need to borrow from the
experience of countries that are similar in terms of population, level
of development and natural resource endowment. India, for example,
generates as much as 950,000 megawatts for a population of 1.2 billion
people. That’s about 850 kilowatts per person. South Africa currently
generates 40,000 megawatts, with additional 11,000 megawatts to come on
stream for a population of about 50 million people. That comes to 900
kilowatts for each person. In Nigeria, we have about 4,000 megawatts and
sometimes less for the consumption of 180 million people.
Comparatively, this goes to one kilowatt for 45 people. What this
implies is that the average power available to a single individual in
other countries is what 45 Nigerians share. To make it clearer, if this
was food, the meal available to one person elsewhere is what 45 people
will share in Nigeria. Obviously, these 45 people will become emaciated
and probably die of hunger. This is exactly what is happening to our
industries and which also impacts on our unemployment rate.
In
terms of technology, Nigeria is also highly deficient. The old
hydro-power stations were constructed in the seventies by foreign
engineers. Presently, the gas-driven thermal IPPs are based on foreign
technologies like those of China and Germany. Our transmission
technology too is foreign, although our local engineers have made
considerable in-roads in the areas of servicing and maintenance. Only
recently has the Nigerian government developed the necessary partnership
for training power sector engineers and manpower, when the existing
manpower gap had become too obvious with the unbundling of the defunct
Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
The most reliable component of
our power generation mix today is hydro due largely to the natural
resources of the Niger River and other rivers. This has afforded us the
development of backbone generating infrastructure such as Kanji and
Shiroro dams. Unfortunately, this model of power generation is not
scalable and has a long gestation period, unsuitable for the Nigerian
situation, which has become urgent. The other model which is the thermal
generating type, infinitely scalable and of relatively low gestation
would have been the ultimate solution, considering our comparative
advantage in the sourcing of gas for such plants. Nigeria is endowed
with expansive deposit of hydro-carbons such as natural gas and coal. In
the last 15 years, the country has invested huge sums of dollars
mentioned earlier in pursuit of this apparently beneficial model. The
challenges which have stunted the success rate are systemic in terms of
corruption and the economics surrounding the procurement and stable
delivery of input raw materials such as gas. Nigeria is one of the top
10 gas producers in the world, yet, natural gas is not under the control
of the power sector. There are three conflicting interests contesting
the use of Nigerian gas: The international market, the domestic market
and the energy sector. Here lies the problem.
Because the
Nigerian gas production sector is firmly under the control of the
multinational oil companies, their focus is to satisfy the international
market. The Nigerian regulator, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation appears not to have been empowered with the right political
will to assert its full influence in securing adequate supply of gas for
the energy sector. These are market forces playing out and resulting in
the underproduction of the NIPPs and other thermal generating plants.
The
supply chain of gas has been subjected to high levels of corruption by
the cabal operating Nigeria’s oil sector. The choice facing us as a
nation is to confront the corruption system head-on or procure our gas
at open market rate and seek other less competitive fuel for our thermal
stations such as coal. The Petroleum Industry Bill and other local
content bills will form useful tools in addressing the issue of
corruption in the power sector as well. Government should also encourage
companies to produce gas solely for domestic use in the energy sector.
The other option is to explore modern renewable energy technologies such
as wind turbines, solar energy and bio-fuel.
Rather than see
the power sector challenges in a negative light, we should begin to
unwrap the opportunities presented to this current and future
generations. Nigeria has the largest power plants in Africa. It’s my
belief that if the potential of the power plants are adequately
harnessed, there will no doubt be a tremendous improvement in power
generation. We must develop world class models for the transport and
entire value chains for energy delivery, develop engineering technology
and human resource locally as well as research into modern and
futuristic energy storage and accumulator systems. I challenge Nigeria’s
Ivory Towers, especially the universities of technology to put their
act together and syndicate locally applicable solutions, especially in
the field of renewable energy such as gas, wind and bio-fuel.
These
measures, apart from resolving the age-long power sector challenges,
will also boost employment and productivity as well as help in
rejuvenating and diversifying the Nigerian economy.
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