Give Us Electricity, Not Megawatts

I was a student of Physics, so I know what a megawatt means, but Nigerians are actually tired of the ‘megawatts stories’. All that the government has been promising without fulfilment are more megawatts by ‘next year’. So far, nothing has happened. Yet, without stable and reliable electricity, you cannot produce anything, and if Nigeria must achieve the Millennium Development Goals and or even gravitate toward becoming a G20 country, she must get her electricity right as soon as possible

According to the Managing Director of the World Bank, and Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, electricity consumption per capita in Nigeria in 2009 was 106 kilowatts. This is abysmal, she said, when compared with other growing economies: 443 kilowatts for India, 2,443 kilowatts per capita for China, and 4,921 for South Africa. Said she: ‘Nigeria generates about 4,000 megawatts of electricity for 150 million people; South Africa generates 45,000 megawatts for 49 million people (while) Indonesia generates 30,900 megawatts for its 200 million plus people. Even though South Africa is generating 45,000, the country has just gone to the World Bank for a mega loan over $3.5 billion, the biggest the World Bank has ever made’ (Vanguard 6 Dec. 2010).

The multiplier effects of a stable and reliable power supply cannot be over-emphasised. If there is light, there will be jobs, and crimes like robbery and kidnapping will nosedive. It is unfortunate that more than 60 million generators make noise every day and night in Nigeria, and the monies used in fuelling these noise makers can even finance an annual budget.
The rich people who benefit from this lamentable circumstance should not worry whether a stable power would deplete their purse; they can as well choose to invest in the power sector and Nigerians who buy petrol and diesel will definitely buy the light! We do not need a formal declaration of an ‘emergency in the power sector’; there has been an emergency in this sector since as far as we can remember.
Let all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory create the ministries and departments for electricity; let all local governments replace all old transformers in all wards, and let there be light; and no one will care if at all they came in naijawatts!