NIGERIANS are tired of stories about why they cannot get constant power supply. They have become too familiar with the constraints and the more depressing stories about how the country would have made progress if power supply improved.

All they want now is for government to do everything it can – from the tomes of studies and billions of dollars it has invested – to ensure that electricity is available to Nigerians.

The discovery that the N30 billion ($220 million) Olorunsogo Power Plant is not working will not be news to many. It would have been news if it worked. The 304mw project, commissioned in 2007, works in fits. Of its eight turbines, six have broken down. It produces about 60mw.

Professor Barth Nnaji, Minister of Power, learnt at the plant that it worked for three years then the turbines stopped. Other complaints were lack of spare parts and operating manuals were in Mandarin – a Chinese company built the plant – without English translations.

Nigerians running the plant spoke of their frustration at the hands of the Chinese who were to teach them how to maintain the plant. The Nigerian team could also not access the agreement – which hopefully is written in English – to know their responsibilities. Of course, the Chinese could argue they were protecting their investment, since a loan from the Chinese government was part of the funding for the project.

However, all these point to how serious government is about electricity, which it admits is central to the development of the economy and personal life. The verdict is that the Olorunsogo project, still in its first phase, is as good as doomed. Nnaji promised to take the findings to the President, to explore the possibility of re-negotiating the project that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo commissioned a little before leaving office.

Olorunsogo is a metaphor for how government businesses work. It also tells part of the story about the faithlessness of our leaders to the country. Who could have signed an agreement that would make Nigerians unable to operate the plant? Was improvement of electricity supply really the motive for Olorunsogo, which after commissioning is bisected by other challenges, including availability of gas to power the plant?

Its location in Ogun State, far from the gas it uses, produced in fields in the Niger Delta, was a political decision that still suffers from the resources to construct the gas pipelines, and safeguard them to the source of the gas.

Another is that government officials do not have the channels to report progress, if any, in their work. Where such reports are made, they are lost in the morass of documents that snake their way to the responsible officials who make the decisions. Why did it take four years for the Minister of Power to know the challenges working with the Chinese posed? Nigerian officials say the issue of spare parts was not new.

“Our problem is not with the plants but the distribution companies,” Nnaji said. “About 40 per cent of the power generated gets lost on transmission because the distribution companies are unable to pay for the power generated from the plants. It is worrisome that the distribution companies are not doing enough to justify the power generated because of over bloated staff,” Nnaji said.

Nigerians want the challenges, whatever they are, resolved. Nnaji should wade through them, including new ones, and improve electricity supply. He would be so shocked as he moves around that the discovery in Olorunsogo, will soon pale to insignificance.