By Oscarline ONWUEMENYI
Last month’s high stakes drama in the nation’s power industry, which culminated in the sack of some executives by the Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, brought back to the national front-burner the inherent and probably the most virile impediment towards many a government’s efforts to develop vital sectors of national life which in turn would have immense impact on the social and economic lives of the citizens.

For more than three weeks, vast amounts of the country was cut off from electricity supply, a situation that was particularly shocking even for a country that has grown so used to the epileptic nature of power supply. The Minister was reportedly out of the country on holiday when the power outages took place, and upon his return was summoned by the President to explain the power situation.

In what therefore appeared like a rare moment of decisiveness, the Federal Government brought down the hammer on three top executives in the sector when it announced the immediate retirement of the Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engr. Akinwunmi Bada, and the Market Operator, Engr. Uzoma Achinanya as well as the Executive Director, Human Resources of PHCN, Mr. Olushoga Muyiwa.

In announcing their sack, Prof. Nnaji, stated that government’s action was not unconnected with the drastic decline in electricity supply over the past few weeks, which has greatly impaired the Federal government’s desire to bolster power supply for industrial and domestic use in the country. The embarrassing epilepsy in power supply happened when government was busy trumpeting its achievements or milestones in power generation across the country.

“We decided to take this action because of what has been happening in the last three weeks in the power sector. As all of us will remember, in January we experienced recorded highs for power ever in the history of this nation but then a number of issues led to reductions in availability of power and these issues, some of them are things we cannot do anything about like nature and some we absolutely have the capacity to control,” Nnaji said.

The Minister’s fury was palpable when he said the changes became necessary as part of renewed efforts towards achieving adequate and effective power supply in the country.

Sources revealed to our correspondent in Abuja that Federal government’s actions was not unconnected with attempts to get to the root of suspicions of acts of sabotage by certain elements said to be opposed to the liberalisation of the power sector. Security agencies were said to have discovered that the current nationwide reduction in power supply is the handiwork of saboteurs working against reforms in the sector.

The sabotage allegation was further heightened by an explosion which occurred at 4.15am on Friday, March 23, 2012 at the Benin station of the TCN; the explosion and fire outbreak subsequently re-occurred on Sunday, March 26, on the same facility; thus, leading to power outage in most parts of the country.

According to the Minister, “This other issue is what one could characterise as sabotage in the system and we really don’t want to think that there are people who wouldn’t want progress of the country but we have to manage those set of issues.

As a result of this, we are making some adjustments in the management of PHCN successor companies and system; I want to tell you that we have no choice than to do this because the country must improve in electricity supply and the key to having it will be you and it is how such a quality of management that you bring to bear that will determine that.”

He said henceforth, the country will not tolerate frequent swings in the power supply systems, adding that there must be some level of predictability in the amount of power available for distribution to Nigerians.

Nnaji noted that, “On the business of ensuring that we have reliable power supply, we cannot afford to have swings in the system; today you get certain amount of power, tomorrow there is another amount, there need to be predictability; Nigerians need to know what they are getting and we must insist that we do it this way, it’s not going to be anymore however you decide to manage.

“For now, what we want to communicate here is that we are going to vigorously pursue any hindrance to power supply and ensure that we clean out the system. We have to make sure that we deliver more reliable electricity to the country. It is just a few people that internally tried to tinker with the system but we are in a good shape and we are moving forward from there.”

Nnaji, however, also noted that while some of the reasons for the decline in the power situation are within management’s capacity to control, some are cause by nature which is beyond human control.

But the mere allegation of sabotage to government’s efforts to provide electricity to long-suffering Nigerians ordinarily begs the question: who is behind the sabotage, and what do they plan to achieve by such nefarious acts, which would certainly be to the detriment of the entire national economy? More critically, it brings to mind the widespread agitations by electricity workers which greeted the current Minister of Power upon his appointment to the position in June 2010.

The angst against Nnaji prior to his appointment indeed marked a watershed in the history of the country because of its uncommonness in our society. Rarely in this clime does one see a group of workers carrying placards and shutting down operations in protest against a potential employer.

However, when President Goodluck Jonathan announced his choice of Prof Barth Nnaji as the Special Adviser on Power, not a few applauded the appointment and described it as not only courageous but as one of those rare round-peg-in-a-round-hole moments in Nigerian public administration.

Across a broad spectrum of Nigerians, it was generally agreed that Prof. Nnaji’s acceptance to serve was indeed a demonstration of the kind of love for country that only true patriots possessed. He promptly reported for duty, rolled his sleeves and got busy with the mandate he was given.

Indeed, the job of acting on behalf of the President on the most critical sector in the economy – power – is one of the most challenging in the country, not only because it interfaces directly with the aspirations of every Nigerian to have regular electricity supply in order to stimulate our industrial transformation, but also because it contends with one of the most potent bastions of corruption in the country. It is this same bulwark of corruption that has stood in the way and made nonsense of previous administrations’ mission to deliver steady electricity to Nigerians since the return to democratic rule in 1999.