By Dele Sobowale

“For example, Nigeria has signed an MoU with the Democratic Republic of Congo for the importation of electricity from the Inga Dam Power Plant.” Professor Nebo, Minister of Power, PUNCH, March 25, 2014.

The PUNCH had reported on that day that “Power generation drops by 963MW. It went on to inform Nigerians that power supply dropped to 2500MW the day before. That is no longer news to Nigerians. Obasanjo met power generation at 2,500MW in 1999; his first Minister of Power, Chief Bola Ige rashly promised Nigerians to bring an end to power failure by December of the same year – 1999. Since then, every Minister of Power has always promised to lift power supply to new levels by December of every year. Yet, here we are, fifteen years after Obasanjo and the PDP took power and the nation is still generating the same level of power supply.

In the same PUNCH report, one Mr Ibrahim Waziri, Board Chairman, Transmission Company of Nigeria, had explanations for this disgraceful performance. Please don’t laugh as you read.

“Gas supply has dropped significantly in the last two weeks; in fact, it is exactly two weeks. That has resulted in reduced generation to about 2,500MW”. Mr Ibrahim, at least was honest enough to announce, as if gladly, that “”we are back to square one.” [italics mine].

While Mr Waziri had been honest with us, Professor Nebo is the second Professor and Minister of Power to grossly mislead us. His predecessor in office, Professor Barth Nnaji who, apart from getting himself entangled in conflict of interest, had made the same empty promises which Nebo is now peddling – obviously without remorse. Let me remind Professor Nebo of what Professor Nnaji promised before he was, deservedly, kicked out. But, first let me remind Professor Nebo’s own promise – which he had obviously for gotten.

In June last year, a few days after the Vice President had shamelessly promised Nigerians 20,000MW “soon”, Professor Nebo felt obligated to come to the VP’s support. So, Prof announced that power generation would reach 10,000MW by December 2013. We ended the year without the Minister redeeming his pledge. But, he won’t be the first. Lyel Imoke and Professor Nnaji had promised the same target in 2007 and 2011, 2012 respectively.

There had been no apologies to the public each time they failed. In fact, if there is one promise that one can expect to be broken it is any promise made by a Minister of Power – especially a Professor. The dismal record of unfulfilled promises by Professors in government leaves one wondering what those people teach their students on campus. What ever happened to integrity.

Finally, the Professor announced that the “giant of Africa” will soon be purchasing power from a smaller nation – as if it was the greatest achievement of the Federal government instead of admission of total failure by a Minister who is totally bereft of ideas. You can believe that because it will provide all the excuses they need to steal foreign exchange – like imported fuel imports.

“If gold rusts…”. When professors fail us, who will deliver on the promise? Certainly, not Nebo.

While we are still at it, we might as well remind ourselves of the rejoinder written last year by Dr Reuben Abati, the President’s Special Adviser on Media in response to the criticism of the Federal Government by Dr Oby Ezekwesili. Titled Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s Men, Abati asserted that the Jonathan Administration met power supply at 2000MW [a lie] and has raised it to 4520MW.

Like most untruths about power generation by government officials, Abati failed to mention that the 4520MW was reached only once and since then it had become a mission impossible. Furthermore, the Jonathan “miracle” vanished since last year and now we are back to 2,000MW without a word from Reuben Abati, Ph.D.

Obviously, Jonathan, Ph.D, is partial to people who are intelligent but whose integrity, defined as standing for truth, is at best suspect or in deficit. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand how he seems to appoint people as Minister of Power whose contributions to power supply since 2010 had been zero. The truth is, power supply reached 4,000MW under Yar’Adua in 2009; Jonathan has failed to move us beyond that level in four years – mainly because he had made the wrong appointments. If the performance of the last two professors is anything to go by, then perhaps it is time we tried a market trader. They don’t speak long grammar but they achieve profitable results.

When the power distribution sector was about to be privatized, it was generally known that gas supply would be a major constraint. It was also expected that the Federal government would not place the DISCOs in jeopardy by improving on the gas supply to the generating units. Instead, what we have experienced has been worsening power generation threatening the investment of the stakeholders in the power sector. More annoying is the fact that, the excuses remain the same year after year – as if we are listening to a broken record.

Perhaps the Minister of Power will do us a favour; he should just stop talking to us as if we are morons who cannot remember what he said last year.