Madam Minister and the Evil Spirits Plaguing Power Sector

On Tuesday, November 29, 2012, one of the most ridiculous statements ever credited to a high ranking public official was recorded. Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Hajiya Zainab Kuchi at her office in Abuja, stunned a delegation of South African investors when she told them that the country’s power sector is being haunted by evil spirits.

To say Kuchi’s superstitious response to the begging question of why Nigeria is in perpetual darkness did not shock the public is to say the least. Not only did the Honourable Minister of Power’s statement successfully reduce her exalted person to a laughing stock, she, by extension put a question tag on her competence and the intellectual reasoning demanded of her office.

For a country with a population of 170,123,740, according to the 2012 CIA World Factbook, Nigeria as of today needs at least 10,000 MW of electricity to adequately cater for her domestic consumption. A further national consumption need of 35,000MW is envisaged by the year 2020. Sadly, the country is still a far cry from meeting her power needs as it is grappling with a dismal power generation of less than 4,000MW.

To put an end to this deficit, successive governments have taken measures to lift the nation out of the darkness and retrogression caused by epileptic power supply, and fashion a credible means to power the country into national growth.

Prominent of such interventions was the Independent Power Project (IPP) started by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’ administration. In a scandalous case of misuse of public funds, some whooping $16 billion meant to generate a meagre 4,000MW, and revitalize the power sector went down the drain without any improvement to electricity supply.

Late President Musa Yar’adua upon taking the oath of office in 2007, prioritized electricity as one of the seven-point agenda his administration sought to vigorously pursue. Posterity will always recollect that the only achievement the late President had in the power sector was increasing electricity tariffs and further compounding the problems in the sector.

President Goodluck Jonathan like his predecessor also promised Nigerians stable electricity. To this effect, his administration embarked on Power Reforms to arrest the ugly trend. In fairness to the Goodluck administration, there was relative stability in power supply, with electricity generation climbing to a record high of 4,237MW in August, until Professor Barth Nnaji was removed as Minister of Power.

Certainly the evil spirits Madam Minister refers to couldn’t be those non-physical creatures committed to causing misery and pains among mankind?Could they be none other than saboteurs perpetually positioned among the powers that be in the power sector? Or profiteers masquerading as contractors?