DOUBTS about the increasing confusion  in our electricity transformation programme are strengthened by the relentless quest of Nigerian officials to snap up contracts in all languages.

We currently have them in English, French, German, Japanese and Mandarin (Chinese). More will follow.

When the world has deep concerns about compatibility of technologies, Nigeria is on a reckless global search for resources from all sources for its flagging electricity supply. Some of the agreements and their implications:

*President Goodluck Jonathan on a visit to Germany in April, visited Siemens and officials signed new electricity contracts.

*The French government signed a N31.4 billion contract with Nigeria on behalf of its companies to undertake feasibility studies, to select and construct high voltage transmission lines and sub-stations.

*A N2 billion contract was signed with the Japanese government for solar system at Umaru Ya’dua University in Katsina. Japan’s contributions to the electricity sector, its embassy officials said, were more than N157. 52 billion since 2000.

*Power Minister, Bart Nnaji said last March that General Electric, an American company, signed a $10 billion deal with the Federal Government. GE said it would take only 10 to 15 per cent interest in the business. In August 2010, government officials suggested $100 billion as conservative estimate for new power plants and transmission lines over the next decade.

*The Federal Government also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Global Biofuels Limited, for construction of 15 integrated bio-fuel plants in the country. The bio-fuel plant is estimated to gulp about N414 billion.

The project is expected to create 120, 000 direct and 750,000 indirect jobs across the value chain and link 15 states to cheap bio-fuel generated electricity at 30 megawatts per state. China would provide 70 per cent of the funds while the rest would be from financial institutions.

According to the promoters: “The project is agro-industrial, which will use sweet sorghum as raw materials to produce ethanol.”

It is instructive that a contract with the Chinese in one of the plants fell into controversy when the Chinese departed. All the operating manuals of the plant are in Mandarin. Yet more contracts are being signed with more countries, in inaccessible languages, without any visible improvements in electricity supply.

None of the contracts has addressed the nagging issues of gas supply, funding, transmission and the more neglected matters of rising costs of electricity — consumers pay without service and no meters in most places.

Government officials are treating electricity as another of the challenges Nigeria faces. It is a major challenge with consequences that adversely affect other sectors. All these contracts and their conflicting technologies will spell another round of doom for electricity supply.