Failed Expectations in Power Sector

With steady power supply still below 4,500MW since 2013, coupled with frequent system disturbances, the federal government and the private sector have failed to deliver adequate and affordable electricity, despite promises by successive administrations, Ejiofor Alike reports

Inadequate power supply to domestic households and industrial producers is not a new to most of the people who live in Nigeria. The daily power supply is estimated at four hours, thus resulting in the highly bad state of the country’s basic infrastructure, such as water system, health care system, petroleum product distribution, agriculture, and education.

This has also caused a stunt within the expansion of the country’s ongoing economic development. Many families and businesses in Nigeria have to run one or more diesel-fuelled generators to provide them with the facility they need to either run their businesses or household as a result of this energy crisis. This has also led many industries to travel away to a way better and more suitable environment.  

Since November 1, 2013 when the federal government handed power generation and distribution to the private sector, the steady supply of adequate electricity has remained a mirage. Before the power assets were transferred to the private investors, the country’s power supply already hovered around 4,500 megawatts under the then Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji. In its efforts to convince Nigerians and the recalcitrant electricity workers who were vehemently opposed to the power sector privatisation, the federal government had promised that the benefits Nigerians enjoyed in the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector would be replicated in the power sector.

According to the federal government, a privatised power sector would guarantee huge investments, massive employment opportunities, as well as adequate and affordable power supply. Despite these promises, actually electricity supply had only occasionally exceeded 5,000megawatts before it slumped steadily below 4,500megawatts. System disturbances have on several occasions led to the collapse of the power infrastructure, with supply plummeting below 2,000MW. At the beginning of the month President Muhammadu Buhari took over in 2015, Nigeria’s total electricity generation had dropped to 2,800 megawatts, the lowest in nearly a year. Power output dropped from a peak of 4,500MW on April 3, 2015 to 2,800 as of May 1, 2015.

The then Permanent Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, had blamed the huge cut on “vandalism of gas pipelines.”

Igali, who spoke at a meeting with the then Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ade Abolurin, said the affected pipeline was the Escravos route.

On May 20, 2015, when power supply dropped further to 2,700MW, Igali had blamed the drastic drop in power generation over the previous five weeks on “the nefarious activities of gas and crude oil pipeline vandals” which occur on an almost daily basis.

The week before Buhari took over, power generation fell to a record low of 1,327MW amid a biting nationwide fuel scarcity.

President Buhari had on assumption of office promised to raise generation to 10,000MW.

But on March 10, 2016, generation slumped to a record low, hitting its lowest point since Buhari took power.

Earlier on March 1, 2016, power generation had also dropped to a record nine-month low, landing at 2,800MW.

But on March 10, the daily report of the Nigerian System Operations (NESO), a department of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), showed that power fell to 1,580.6MW.

Barely one month before Buhari resumed his second tenure in May 2019, power generation had also dropped in the national grid from about 3,231 MW to 2,919MW.

More than a week earlier, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had also reported a system collapse, which cut electricity generation from about 4,338.9 MW as at April 20, 2019.

The transmission company said the cut in gas supply was caused by a leakage discovered on the Escravos-Lagos pipeline system.

As Nigerians continued to groan under epileptic power supply, it slumped to zero with the collapse of the national grid around 10.40am last Monday, leading to widespread blackout across the country.

Alerting its customers, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company had described the incident as a general system collapse, adding that the plunge in power generation on the grid caused a blackout in the five states under its franchise area.

On its part, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company stated that the collapse affected its network and franchise area – Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger States.

Ikeja Electric also confirmed the system collapse, while Eko Electricity Distribution Company also informed its customers that “a system collapse occurred on the national grid at 10:40am today (Monday), leading to outages across our network.

Kaduna Disco also stated that “we regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to system collapse of the national grid which occurred at about 10:40am.”

Before the system collapse, the power generation companies had on Sunday blamed the incessant blackouts across the country on the weak infrastructure of transmission and distribution companies.

The Gencos had stated that the poor infrastructure of the Discos and TCN had rendered the quantum of electricity generation in Nigeria inconsequential.

While the federal government-owned TCN manages the power grid, the Discos and Gencos are managed by the private sector.

Before the reaction of the Gencos, the TCN had ascribed the low power generation to Gencos’ inability or refusal to generate power.

Barely 48 hours after the Monday collapse, many parts of the country were thrown into darkness on Tuesday following another collapse of the National Grid.

Ikeja Electric Plc, and Eko Electricity Distribution Company confirmed the partial collapse of the grid.

The companies said the collapse of the grid occurred at 5.10 p.m on Tuesday.

In a public announcement to its customers on Tuesday, the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company described the collapse of the grid as total. As the various stakeholders in the electricity value chain continue to trade blames, Nigerians have remained in darkness with no end in sight to the power crisis.

Reacting to the latest power crisis, the former Minister of Power and Chairman of Geometric Power Limited, Nnaji identified lack of gas to power existing generating plants, inadequate transmission and distribution infrastructure and human factors along the power supply value chain, as the main challenges in the sector.

Until the government deals frontally with the issues of power, development in all ramifications will continue to elude the country.