February 19, 2010
It is not news that Nigeria is having an electricity power crisis. I will be forthright about what we need to do to resolve the crisis and how we can do it. If Ag. President Goodluck Jonathan can reach for the needed courage, the problem will be solved. Let me start by stating some of the excuses which some Nigerian public officials, who have the responsibility for providing Nigerians with adequate and safe electricity have been making:
It is not news that Nigeria is having an electricity power crisis. I will be forthright about what we need to do to resolve the crisis and how we can do it. If Ag. President Goodluck Jonathan can reach for the needed courage, the problem will be solved. Let me start by stating some of the excuses which some Nigerian public officials, who have the responsibility for providing Nigerians with adequate and safe electricity have been making:
1. The present Minister of Power, who could not deliver on government’s promise to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity by December 2009, said on Thursday February 18th, that, "We have brought the issue of gas to the attention of the Acting President a number of times; and unless all the problems militating against the supply of gas to the power stations are addressed, there is no way we can actually deliver more power to Nigerians. As at December 2009, we were generating about 3,400 megawatts, but as at today, we have lost about 1,200 mega watts. The capacity to generate 4,000 megawatts has been compromised as a result of the lack of gas to the power plants." So, the excuse is that there is insufficient gas to feed the available gas power plants, which continue to operate at below installed capacity or to be shut down frequently.
2. Local communities have been frustrating the work by contractors who have been contracted to build electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. On this, the Minister of power, Dr. Babalola said, “we are experiencing delay because the owners (land owners; local communities) are not allowing the contractors to move ahead with the work. The council is to summon governors of such areas.”
3. Niger Delta militants are responsible for inadequate power supply, as they have blown up gas pipelines. In the last week of December 2009, the Minister of Power, Dr. Babalola said at a press conference in Lagos, “Things have started to look up as we were able to generate 3,600 megawatts, which is the highest figure ever generated and released into the national grid in the last three years. But we have the capacity to generate about 5,500 megawatts from the various stations; that however depends on the availability of gas for the thermal plants. And right now the gas is not there because of the problems we are having with the vandalization of gas pipelines.”
4. Last year, after the publication of my article “On fuel subsidy: Yar’adua’s time up!”, Yar’adua’s Assistant on Media and Communications, Mr. Segun Adeniyi announced that generator importers had been frustrating government’s efforts at proving Nigerians with adequate electricity. In the article, I called for a ban on importation of generators. So, the convenient excuse is that importers of generators are responsible for the sorry level of electricity supply in the country.
INFORMATION: Nigeria presently has the second fastest growing Liquified Natural gas (LNG) capacity in the world (second only to Qatar). You may remember the aggressive LNG projects, which began during the Babangida administration in 1989 that brought about the current six train units. You may have heard of the West African Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Saharan Gas projects. The NLNG project in Nigeria is co-owned by Nigeria—through NNPC (49 percent); Shell (25.6 percent; Total LNG Nigeria Ltd (15 percent); and Eni (10.4 percent). Unfortunately, those who conceived the gas development plan (both associated and non-associated gas) had a single eye on exports. Even the present initiative on Domestics Gas Supply obligation regulation is lame.
Gas exporters in Nigeria place profit-making above other considerations. If all gas-powered thermal plants in Nigeria will have uninterrupted supply of gas, the commodity must be purchased at economic rate. This means that Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) must sell electricity at economic rates in order to recoup investment. This option must be explored after
i. government has subsidized the excess value for a period of at least one year, and Nigerians have seen the remarkable difference in sustained generation, transmission and distribution.
ii. computations have been made to determine how much electricity consumers whose supplies are from the gas-powered thermal plants will pay, which must be different from what consumers from other sources such as hydro-plants pay.
REMOVAL OF THE MINISTER OF POWER:
Acting President Jonathan must relieve the Minister of Power and his Minister of State of their responsibilities in the Power ministry. They have lost the trust of Nigerians and moral authority to superintend the ministry. Having failed to deliver the 6,000 MW promised by December 2009, how does Dr. Jonathan expect Nigerians to believe he is serious about solving the electricity problem if he still keeps those discredited men in charge? Just take a look again at the first three excuses I mentioned above. The Minister of Power made them all.
By his excuse in (1) above, he has emphatically told Nigerians that there is nothing he can do. Hear him: “…and unless all the problems militating against the supply of gas to the power stations are addressed, there is no way we can actually deliver more power to Nigerians.” And does the Minister have any ideas about resolving the gas supply problems? Well, he has placed the blame for inaction on Acting President Jonathan. Read what he said only few hours before I set out to write this article: "We have brought the issue of gas to the attention of the Acting President a number of times.” Dr. Babalola says Dr. Jonathan is clueless just like he is. He says he has brought the problem of gas supply to the attention of Dr. Jonathan “a number of times.” What he is saying is, “Nigerians, blame the slow-acting, undecided, and visionless Acting President.” Dr. Babalola wonders aloud why both President Yar’adua and Acting President Jonathan see nothing urgent about resolving the power crisis; “a number of times” he has drummed in the ears of those dull guys in power the underlying problem facing the power sector. But have they any ideas? Hey no! Dr. Jonathan has been identified by the Minister of Power as being one of the problems militating against the resolution of the power crisis. How many times must the Minister report the problem he has been facing in his assignment before Jonathan would act? If I were Dr. Babalola, I would resign in the face of these “insurmountable frustrations”, with Acting President not helping matters.
Dr. Babalola has more frustrations—The irrepressible Niger Delta militants who keep blowing up pipelines and the “unpatriotic” land owners who would not allow government to solve the power problem. He is telling Nigerians where the blame should be placed. It is honorable if one cannot solve a national problem and he resigns.
I propose the following urgent steps:
1. The two ministers I mentioned above must be removed from office, and people, who fear neither frowns nor death, should be appointed in their places.
2. The federal government must take the painful but necessary steps to ban the importation of generators into Nigeria until 24-hour power supply is achieved.
3. The federal government must ban the use of generators at all government buildings, including the presidential mansion. In fact, this will be an environment-friendly decision.
4. Technical experts know that investment in coal-sourced electricity will take about 4 years to bear fruits. The reported decision by the Jonathan administration to seek electricity from coal is therefore a welcome one. But Dr. Babalola must not be in charge.
5. Barely two months into the government of Yar’adua, I wrote in the article entitled “Vision 20-20 and Yar’adua’s wrong steps”, that rather than import cement in order to drive down prices, as an interim measure, the federal government should import electricity from neighboring Cameroon to serve the North-East region of the country. More than 2 years after, nothing is being done. Only one of the 4 turbines installed at the Lagdo dam in Cameroon (built on River Benue) is being used to supply electricity in the Northern Province of that country (which shares borders with Adamawa and Borno States). I have been to the dam. Nigeria could import about 20MW of electricity from this dam.
6. Government should henceforth direct investments in non-gas powered electricity plants. Each state and geo-political zone must be served by power plants which are most proximate and economical. Combination of sources of electric power will save us future embarrassment, even after we have reached saturation point.
We don’t need a committee on power. We don’t need any more promises from either Jonathan or any other national leader. We don’t need promises of x megawatts within y period of time. We don’t want excuses. The government in power cannot afford to keep deceiving Nigerians with excuses. There is no new lie that will work this time. Time is running out. The time to act is now.
Leonard Karshima Shilgba is the President of the Nigeria Rally Movement (www.nigeriarally.org ) and Assistant Professor of Mathematics with the American University of Nigeria.
Email: [email protected], TEL: +234-8055024356
1. The present Minister of Power, who could not deliver on government’s promise to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity by December 2009, said on Thursday February 18th, that, "We have brought the issue of gas to the attention of the Acting President a number of times; and unless all the problems militating against the supply of gas to the power stations are addressed, there is no way we can actually deliver more power to Nigerians. As at December 2009, we were generating about 3,400 megawatts, but as at today, we have lost about 1,200 mega watts. The capacity to generate 4,000 megawatts has been compromised as a result of the lack of gas to the power plants." So, the excuse is that there is insufficient gas to feed the available gas power plants, which continue to operate at below installed capacity or to be shut down frequently.
2. Local communities have been frustrating the work by contractors who have been contracted to build electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. On this, the Minister of power, Dr. Babalola said, “we are experiencing delay because the owners (land owners; local communities) are not allowing the contractors to move ahead with the work. The council is to summon governors of such areas.”
3. Niger Delta militants are responsible for inadequate power supply, as they have blown up gas pipelines. In the last week of December 2009, the Minister of Power, Dr. Babalola said at a press conference in Lagos, “Things have started to look up as we were able to generate 3,600 megawatts, which is the highest figure ever generated and released into the national grid in the last three years. But we have the capacity to generate about 5,500 megawatts from the various stations; that however depends on the availability of gas for the thermal plants. And right now the gas is not there because of the problems we are having with the vandalization of gas pipelines.”
4. Last year, after the publication of my article “On fuel subsidy: Yar’adua’s time up!”, Yar’adua’s Assistant on Media and Communications, Mr. Segun Adeniyi announced that generator importers had been frustrating government’s efforts at proving Nigerians with adequate electricity. In the article, I called for a ban on importation of generators. So, the convenient excuse is that importers of generators are responsible for the sorry level of electricity supply in the country.
INFORMATION: Nigeria presently has the second fastest growing Liquified Natural gas (LNG) capacity in the world (second only to Qatar). You may remember the aggressive LNG projects, which began during the Babangida administration in 1989 that brought about the current six train units. You may have heard of the West African Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Saharan Gas projects. The NLNG project in Nigeria is co-owned by Nigeria—through NNPC (49 percent); Shell (25.6 percent; Total LNG Nigeria Ltd (15 percent); and Eni (10.4 percent). Unfortunately, those who conceived the gas development plan (both associated and non-associated gas) had a single eye on exports. Even the present initiative on Domestics Gas Supply obligation regulation is lame.
Gas exporters in Nigeria place profit-making above other considerations. If all gas-powered thermal plants in Nigeria will have uninterrupted supply of gas, the commodity must be purchased at economic rate. This means that Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) must sell electricity at economic rates in order to recoup investment. This option must be explored after
i. government has subsidized the excess value for a period of at least one year, and Nigerians have seen the remarkable difference in sustained generation, transmission and distribution.
ii. computations have been made to determine how much electricity consumers whose supplies are from the gas-powered thermal plants will pay, which must be different from what consumers from other sources such as hydro-plants pay.
REMOVAL OF THE MINISTER OF POWER:
Acting President Jonathan must relieve the Minister of Power and his Minister of State of their responsibilities in the Power ministry. They have lost the trust of Nigerians and moral authority to superintend the ministry. Having failed to deliver the 6,000 MW promised by December 2009, how does Dr. Jonathan expect Nigerians to believe he is serious about solving the electricity problem if he still keeps those discredited men in charge? Just take a look again at the first three excuses I mentioned above. The Minister of Power made them all.
By his excuse in (1) above, he has emphatically told Nigerians that there is nothing he can do. Hear him: “…and unless all the problems militating against the supply of gas to the power stations are addressed, there is no way we can actually deliver more power to Nigerians.” And does the Minister have any ideas about resolving the gas supply problems? Well, he has placed the blame for inaction on Acting President Jonathan. Read what he said only few hours before I set out to write this article: "We have brought the issue of gas to the attention of the Acting President a number of times.” Dr. Babalola says Dr. Jonathan is clueless just like he is. He says he has brought the problem of gas supply to the attention of Dr. Jonathan “a number of times.” What he is saying is, “Nigerians, blame the slow-acting, undecided, and visionless Acting President.” Dr. Babalola wonders aloud why both President Yar’adua and Acting President Jonathan see nothing urgent about resolving the power crisis; “a number of times” he has drummed in the ears of those dull guys in power the underlying problem facing the power sector. But have they any ideas? Hey no! Dr. Jonathan has been identified by the Minister of Power as being one of the problems militating against the resolution of the power crisis. How many times must the Minister report the problem he has been facing in his assignment before Jonathan would act? If I were Dr. Babalola, I would resign in the face of these “insurmountable frustrations”, with Acting President not helping matters.
Dr. Babalola has more frustrations—The irrepressible Niger Delta militants who keep blowing up pipelines and the “unpatriotic” land owners who would not allow government to solve the power problem. He is telling Nigerians where the blame should be placed. It is honorable if one cannot solve a national problem and he resigns.
I propose the following urgent steps:
1. The two ministers I mentioned above must be removed from office, and people, who fear neither frowns nor death, should be appointed in their places.
2. The federal government must take the painful but necessary steps to ban the importation of generators into Nigeria until 24-hour power supply is achieved.
3. The federal government must ban the use of generators at all government buildings, including the presidential mansion. In fact, this will be an environment-friendly decision.
4. Technical experts know that investment in coal-sourced electricity will take about 4 years to bear fruits. The reported decision by the Jonathan administration to seek electricity from coal is therefore a welcome one. But Dr. Babalola must not be in charge.
5. Barely two months into the government of Yar’adua, I wrote in the article entitled “Vision 20-20 and Yar’adua’s wrong steps”, that rather than import cement in order to drive down prices, as an interim measure, the federal government should import electricity from neighboring Cameroon to serve the North-East region of the country. More than 2 years after, nothing is being done. Only one of the 4 turbines installed at the Lagdo dam in Cameroon (built on River Benue) is being used to supply electricity in the Northern Province of that country (which shares borders with Adamawa and Borno States). I have been to the dam. Nigeria could import about 20MW of electricity from this dam.
6. Government should henceforth direct investments in non-gas powered electricity plants. Each state and geo-political zone must be served by power plants which are most proximate and economical. Combination of sources of electric power will save us future embarrassment, even after we have reached saturation point.
We don’t need a committee on power. We don’t need any more promises from either Jonathan or any other national leader. We don’t need promises of x megawatts within y period of time. We don’t want excuses. The government in power cannot afford to keep deceiving Nigerians with excuses. There is no new lie that will work this time. Time is running out. The time to act is now.
Leonard Karshima Shilgba is the President of the Nigeria Rally Movement (www.nigeriarally.org ) and Assistant Professor of Mathematics with the American University of Nigeria.
Email: [email protected], TEL: +234-8055024356
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });