Recently, Adebayo Adelabu, Nigeria’s Minister of Power, apologized for the crippling electricity shortages in the country. His apologies came complete with a promise that the situation would be addressed within two weeks. While many Nigerians hailed the minister for a rare moment of vulnerable contrition, which is completely alien to public office holders in Nigeria, Nigeria’s hobbling power sector continues to defy solutions while indicting all those who have led the country at one point or another.
At the turn of the year, the harmattan was not as aggressive as expected or previously experienced. It bit hard for a while before quickly giving way to the humid weather currently being experienced around the country. As the days have grown hot and the nights even hotter, Nigerians have been forced to confront a problem that has bedeviled their country for many years now: epileptic power supply.
It didn’t take long after Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 for the power situation to become a running joke. The laughter at Nigeria’s inability to generate and sustain enough electricity to power homes and businesses has since turned to horrified screams at what has become a nightmare. During that time, the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo was said to have invested a staggering 16 billion dollars in the power sector, with only darkness to show for it.
There is no other way to put it, nor is there any sugarcoating it: Nigeria’s inability to generate enough power to fuel its dreams of industrialization is a scandal, a scandal that has proven to be the death of many businesses and dreams.
Since 1999, Nigerians have managed to elect one corrupt administration after the other, and without fail, a running campaign theme for each of them is that they have the solution to Nigeria’s power woes. As he stood before Nigerians begging for their votes in 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had promised to fix the power sector. If anything, the power sector has managed to put the current administration in a fix, sensationally exposing it as woefully incompetent and indifferent.
From crumbling infrastructure to poor management to sabotage, the reasons Nigerians remain in darkness more than sixty years after independence are manifold. But there is agreement that all these reasons share a common theme of leadership failure.
The fact that since 1999, no Nigerian government has been able to rectify Nigeria’s power situation tells its story. No administration has yet been able to summon the political will to confront what is a hydra-headed problem.
Endemic corruption has played its part in ensuring that the power sector in Nigeria continues to struggle. Billions of Naira earmarked for the power sector have vanished into private pockets, with nothing heard of them again and no one held responsible. The rot has been such that Nigeria’s power sector has become a kind of drainpipe on Nigeria’s resources.
Steps have been taken recently to stabilize power in Nigeria. Power generation and distribution have been privatized, with the government concerning itself with regulation. Off-grid solutions have also become increasingly popular.
Yet, Nigeria remains in darkness, and the missing link appears to be the fact that no Nigerian government has been able to bite the bullet and defy the people and problems that have kept Nigerians stuck in darkness for many years now.
Many Nigerians sincerely doubt that the power situation in the country can be resolved. Yet, all it would seem to require is some political will and sustained transparency.
Why these remain elusive is a testament to the fact that Nigeria’s embarrassing power failure is a tale of the failure of power in the country.
Ike Willie-Nwobu
