ELECTRICITY PRIVATIZATION: OPTIMISM

Coal, oil, gas and hydro power are abundant in Nigeria to which Nigeria owns the world’s ninth largest gas reserves; much of it is flared off or left underground. Nigerian government is duty bound to provide basin social amenities inclusive of electricity. The importance of electricity to Nigerians cannot be overemphasized as 95% of economic activities are done with electricity and Electric power supply is the most important commodity for national development. With electrical energy the people are empowered to work from the domestic level and the cottage industries, through the small-scale and medium industries to employment in the large-scale manufacturing complexes.

 

Nigeria’s state power company produces only a few hours of electricity a day, forcing those who can afford it to rely on expensive diesel generators that drain billions of dollars from the economy. Average Nigerians whose source of income is below 1 dollar per day remain in total black out as they cannot afford diesel for generators which courses untold suffering and pains to them as majority  of their activities is done with power supply. Nigerian Government’s have promise to generate 6,000 MW, or even more power through the old Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, the former Niger Dams Authority and the defunct Nigerian Electric Power Authority, now Power Holding Company of Nigeria. (PHCN)

 

Mr. President vowed to reform the power sector through privatization which he has succeed in doing so, on which the complete payment is made last month which has been broken up into 11 generation companies and six distribution companies, all being sold separately to private consortia, for a total of around $2.5 billion.  Most bids were led by Nigerian oligarchs or local firms like Forte Oil but many have recognized technical partners like Siemens and Manila Electric Co. privatization in Nigeria can be traced back to 1992 when Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) was introduced which research has depicted that SAP in Nigeria worsen the economic standard of Nigerian’s because there was increase in cost of living, increase in level of poverty resulted in serious industrial crises. It creates dependency upon commodities which have artificially low prices as they are heavily subsidized by economically dominant nations.

 

The ball is now in the court since Nigerian government has shun there role in power supply, optimistic that electricity supply will be improved from 40% to at least 90% daily, because Nigeria government has invested billions of naira to boost the power sector and the worst part is that Nigeria is borrowing a total of $1.6 billion from the World Bank, Chinese Exim Bank, the African Development Bank and through a Eurobond to upgrade the creaking transmission network that connects power plants to distributing substations but yet no power supply because of corruption and attitudinal in responsibility of some Nigerians with the popular saying that ‘government work is not my father work’. Therefore they will mismanaged and misbehave with public resources, in essence as the bid is been sold to most of our political, industrial and commercial bourgeois here in Nigeria, they will enforced strict measures to ensure that power is stable across the federation.

 

Sadiq Ibrahim Ayuba (SQ)

Political Engineer (BUK)

Ibrahimsadiq194@gmail.com