By Dele Sobowale

Promises, like pie-crusts  are  made to be broken.” — Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, p 203.

No promise has been made so repeatedly and broken just as often as the one made to Nigerians on power supply since 1999.  Every president until 2015 fell flat on his face on this pledge. Somehow, Nigerians assumed that the one after Jonathan will be different. Now we are learning anew not to believe politicians – even old and tired soldiers in mufti.

He marched onto the stage and into Nigerian history again on May 29, 2015 as the fourth President in the Fourth Republic.  He was here before from January 1984 to August 1985; and left us  groping in darkness then. But, all older Nigerians suffered from collective amnesia. We forgot the past and all Nigerians, young and old, are now suffering the consequences. 
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By the time he leaves office, Nigeria will be far behind other nations in economic competitiveness; because every economy develops and produces based on massively and cheaply generated and distributed power.

Among the promises  Buhari  made was the one on power supply. According to him, it is unacceptable for a country like Nigeria to be generating and distributing less than 4,000 MW of power per day. He vowed to correct the situation as soon as possible. Later, he appointed a former Lagos State Governor, a multiple award-winner,  the man who could not fail,  as  the  Minister of Power. With that appointment, everybody  in the world  believed that Buhari meant business.

“For every folly of their [Presidents], [Nigerians] feel the lash.” —Horace, 65-8 BC, VBQ p 61.

Today, the sterling record of the former governor lies in shreds; he will enter Nigerian history as another failed Minister of Power. He joins late Chief Bola Ige, former Minister of Power and Steel (1999-2001) in that regard. Ige and Fashola were unfortunate to serve two presidents, former military Heads of State, who did “not know their left from right” – to use Obasanjo’s own words. If they did, none of them would have added another portfolio for any minister to carry. Power, by itself, is a full-time and back-breaking assignment. Adding Steel, Works and Housing to it for one person was sheer presidential  folly.  

More unfortunately for Nigerians, their individual and collective failures were not limited to lost opportunities and time lost in the race for uninterrupted power supply, the Ministry of Power is probably only next to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources as the hot-bed of corruption. It is no mere coincidence that Obasanjo and Buhari kept the Petroleum portfolio for themselves. They deceived themselves (thinking we are fooled) by claiming that they could trust nobody else with the job.  Fellow Nigerians smile knowingly. And as the Buhari regime marches towards its end, we are faced with the reality that we would have been led by another President who again proved to us that talk is cheap.

Where we are

“Power generation drops by 1,119.6MW, sector’s growth falls by 45%” — Report

Before going into the substance of the report by the  National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, Nigerians need to be reminded of a statement credited to the Federal Minister of Information  and Culture in December 2018. According to Lai Mohammed, two months before the 2019 elections, “the Federal Government has fulfilled all its promises to Nigerians”. As usual with Mohammed, he conveniently forgot two promises explicitly made to Nigerians. The two are inseparable. The first is on health; the second on power. Below is the abbreviated promise on health:

  “increase the quality of all Federal Government owned hospitals to world class within five years. Invest in cutting edge technology such as tele-medicine in all major health centres in the country…Boost local manufacture of 70 per cent of pharmaceuticals…” (Source,  FROM OPPOSITION TO GOVERNING PARTY: NIGERIA’S APC MERGER STORY   by Dr Ogbonnaya Onu,  p 136).  

The obvious questions one should ask Lai Mohammed are: where are the world class hospitals in Nigeria? What became of tele-medicine? And are 70 per cent of pharmaceuticals being manufactured in Nigeria? We all know the answers to all the questions. They all point to the fact that the Buhari administration, like others before it has taken denialism to the next level. World class hospitals cannot exist in a country where power failure occurs more then 50 per cent of the time. Patients will die in droves on operating tables without gen-sets in any Nigerian hospital today.  Here is why.

According to the NBS: “In real terms, the [power] sector grew by 14.36 per cent in Q3 2021, an improvement from the growth rate of -3.66 per cent recorded in the same quarter of 2020.

When compared with the immediate past quarter,  there was a decrease of 63.80 per cent points from 78.16 per cent recorded. Quarter-on-Qurater, the sector grew at a rate of -45 per cent.”  

Despite the silly attempt by the NBS to mask outright failure by stating that “the sector grew at -45 per cent”, instead of declaring that the sector declined by 45 per cent, economists and data analysts were not fooled.  We can spot disaster starring us in the face. The real figures reveal the truth better than percentages and they are frightening.

Records show that after reaching a peak power generation  of merely 5008.9 MW on December 7, 2021, the figure dropped to 3,889.3MW on the very next day. That sort of erratic power supply cannot support rapid economic development; neither can it sustain one.

Where we should be

“Even God cannot change the past.”

Regardless of how much Buhari’s spokesmen may want to deny the truth, the facts will never allow them to re-write the record of failure on power generation. As the President stumbles into the last five months of his seventh year in office, all he has added to what he inherited from Jonathan is 1008.9 MW; and even that is not consistent. It is certainly not the quantum of power generation and distribution on which an economic powerhouse is built.

South Africa, with less than a quarter of our population  generates about 52,000 MW of power; and seldom drops below 45,000 MW even on its worst days. Of what use is 5,0008.9 MW peak generation.

Finally, adequate power supply for any nation is a moving target. As the population grows, more power is required. Nigeria, with an estimated 3 per cent population growth should be aiming to increase its power generation by 20 per cent every five years; otherwise per capita provision falls as it is doing now.

As Buhari inevitably assumes the status of a lame-duck President from January 2022, it is clear that he will not be the President to lift Nigeria’s power generation to the level that will promote rapid economic growth and development.

Nigeria will be standing still until the next President is sworn in.  We hurt ourselves more than we realise by electing the man to a second term. Even Northerners who rejoiced in 2019 can’t wait to see Buhari leave office now.