A very critical element in the mix is the place of companies and individuals with vast investments in the sole substitute to public power source. These are principally generator manufacturers’ agents and importers, diesel importers and generator maintenance and servicing outfits. This alternative industry must be worth hundreds of billions of Naira; offering employment to thousands of Nigerians and expatriates, and contributing to the tax coffers. Yet, to my knowledge, no power policy has factored them into the equation, except perhaps as saboteurs to be dealt with by the military, Nigeria Police and other paramilitary outfits.
Chief Ajibola Ige, of blessed memory, it was, who once said, “Blessed are those who do not hope, for they shall not be disappointed.” An ironic statement, if ever there was one, particularly coming from one of Nigeria’s hope-inducing politicians of his era. Bola Ige, as you probably remember him, or Uncle B to many of his younger followers, died in the service of the nation as Attorney General and Minister of Justice. He was allegedly shot in his bedroom in Ibadan by unknown assailants as his security details “went out to eat.” The assailants remain unknown to date – at least to “we the people” whom he was supposed to be serving. But like all unsolved mysteries, it is a matter of time for as Holy Writ puts it: “… there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known” (Luke 12:2).
As I sit here reflecting on Nigeria at 49, hope and the Cicero of Esa-Oke sprung into my consciousness. When in 1999, Bola Ige, who had wanted to run for the Presidency, but was denied the opportunity by his party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), was appointed Minister of Mines and Power in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s government of rival Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), two emotions were rife – shock and hope. Shock, because Bola Ige, deep-dyed in the old Awolowo school of party supremacy seemed to have acted out of character. But hope sprang in the hearts of pragmatists who felt that if anyone could fix the daunting electricity power problem the nation faced, Uncle B was the man. National service trumped political discipline and the man took office.
The former Oyo state governor did nothing to douse expectation; indeed with a Mr Fix-It attitude, he raised all hopes by announcing a time-table. But in the end, it was hopes dashed; expectations unfulfilled, chalking up, to my knowledge, his first and only failure in an illustrious career in public office spanning over forty years. That was why he subsequently moved to the Ministry of Justice, where the man died.
Several ministers and billions of Naira later, Mr Lanre Babalola, said to be an internationally reputed specialist in the field, is still grappling with the problem. Numbers have been churned out again and again, targets set and reset. The Nigerian understandably has settled for late Bola Ige’s other maxim “siddon look,” even if he cannot help hoping against hope that someday his nation would one day achieve the uninterrupted power feat of her less-endowed neighbour, Ghana.
The power problem is however beyond the bolt and nut approach of successive governments and their technocrats. Its intractability is not the result of bad planning, design and execution of plants, transmission lines etc, even if we’ve had our fair share of those. A very critical element in the mix is the place of companies and individuals with vast investments in the sole substitute to public power source. These are principally generator manufacturers’ agents and importers, diesel importers and generator maintenance and servicing outfits. This alternative industry must be worth hundreds of billions of Naira; offering employment to thousands of Nigerians and expatriates, and contributing to the tax coffers. Yet, to my knowledge, no power policy has factored them into the equation, except perhaps as saboteurs to be dealt with by the military, Nigeria Police and other paramilitary outfits.
This is the crux of the matter. Successive governments have failed to think outside the box. Look at it this way. Government’s inept policies over time have created this burgeoning subsector into which people have invested legally and legitimately, including many youths who went to universities and polytechnics with a view to servicing that sub-sector on graduating. They have become stakeholders in the power sector. Then government wakes up from its long slumber to redress the situation, which implies wiping out the sub-sector. Yet they are ignored. The risk to their investment is not considered; their future immaterial to policy makers. In desperation, they seek to protect themselves – by instigating illegal and immoral activities to stay in business. So they get correctly labelled saboteurs and outlaws to be resisted by all the forces at the government’s disposal, which happens to be inadequate. Business Hallmark in one of its July editions carried a lead story it headlined, “Unseen hands behind power crisis,” which sought to highlight the problem. Of course, tried as the trio of Victor Bassey, Chika Nwabueze and Obinna Chima did, mum was the word from the generator marketers they approached. It’s a survival thing, man.
A new approach is needed. Has it occurred to anyone to study the extent of this sub-sector to determine the size of investments, the number of jobs and the general socio-economic impact of a successful resuscitation of the public power sector on this section of it? Can stakeholders in the subsector get a piece of the action in the emerging scenario? Are the massive iron and metal contrivances capable of being integrated into the system or are they convertible to other uses? What becomes of those scraps, when they do become so?
What applies to the power sector is equally applicable to the transportation sector. Where do the trailer and tanker vehicle owners and operators fit in the scheme of things as we seek a revitalization of the rail sector? What becomes of the massive investments in the long haul vehicles and their thousands of minders? If cries of sabotage are not yet being heard there, they will.
While not encouraging lawlessness, I commend this wisdom of the Lord Jesus to our leaders: “…If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? (Matthew 18:12). Governments exist to take care of the interests of all its citizens, including those whose minority interests might be hurt in the process of meeting the needs of the majority. Otherwise the road to majority satisfaction will be unnecessarily elongated, as is currently the case.
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