Nigeria, not for the first time, is on the cusp of perpetual darkness and citizens are left frustrated as alternatives to provide power for themselves are expensive (cost of diesel and solar) and unavailable (fuel scarcity). The whole of Nigeria has never had 24 hours of power in any time of their history – pre-independence and post-independence. Just a few elite areas with arranged agreements with power companies can boast of 24/7 light. This begs the question, why not for all?
Before we address that, let us examine three events.
- Event 1: “Two weeks after the invasion began, tens of thousands of Ukrainians were without electricity as Civilians in the Donbas region felt the effect of escalating Ukraine-Russia crisis.” – Ukraine’s electricity situation on a precipice of war.
- Event 2: “The Energy Networks Association said about 226,000 customers remained without power, while some 1.2 million had been reconnected as one of the worst storms in a generation, Storm Eunice hit the United Kingdom.” – United Kingdom’s electricity situation after a natural disaster.
- Event 3: “The Transmission Company of Nigeria wishes to notify consumers of electricity that the current load shedding being experienced nationwide is as a result of very low power generation by the Generation Companies (GENCOs) for TCN to wheel through the transmission grid to distribution companies nationwide.” – Nigeria’s electricity situation after months of epileptic power supply.
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In the first two events, Ukraine and the United Kingdom lost power supply as a result of war and a natural disaster. In the third event, a country that has never had stable power supply is seen to be at the mercy of blame-shifting stakeholders.
In Nigeria, power is allegedly privatized. However, government through the Ministry of Power and a supposed Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), there are other stakeholders – DISCOs (handles the distribution of power), there are GENCOs,(handles the generation of power), then there is TCN (handles the transmission of power).
So the power situation in Nigeria has been a combination of different stories – The Minister of Power explained the reasons behind the recent poor power supply, citing hydro capacity during the dry season and maintenance work at gas plants. Then the Transmission Company of Nigeria said that the current load shedding being experienced nationwide is as a result of very low power generation by the Generation Companies (GENCOs) for TCN to wheel through the transmission grid to distribution companies nationwide.
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The GENCOs have accused the Federal government of not meeting up with its financial obligations as they cannot maintain their machines and pay their suppliers. This is a new tune from the GENCOs as in the past years, as they claimed ‘unutilised capacity’ according to a report by the Association of Nigerians Electricity Distributors (ANED), the umbrella body of the Discos.
The association claimed that since 2015, the TCN had not improved on its capacity to transmit electricity to them (Discos). The report painted an unflattering picture of how the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) contributes to the erratic power supply in the country, describing the only government-controlled company in the supply value chain as a major threat to the power sector.
But this time around, the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), said lack of payment is an obstacle on the Operations of GENCOs. The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company Plc have countered the GENCOs by saying they have not painted an accurate picture in the market as NBET has paid the GENCOs about 90 percent of their invoices, saying that the company pays the GENCOs almost immediately remittances from the DISCOs were received.
Read: TCN explains reasons for incessant power failure and load shedding across the country
But where is the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in all of this? One major problem, Nigeria as a Federal entity has is the lack of transparency, accountability, and communication amongst their core institutions. As operators of the power value chain trade blame, NERC’s silence has been anything but loud. As Nigerians groan on social media over the state of power supply, their Twitter handle’s last update was the newly appointed commissioners resuming for duty.
In developed countries, people look forward to regulatory commissions to understand data but a visit to the NERC website shows we are light years behind. No sector statistics on electricity, no update on Megawatt’s data, no updates on when power will be restored, a passive Twitter account that does exhibit being on top of the situation. Nigerians have been kept in the dark – no pun intended.
You have to be an active reader of Nigerian newspapers scampering for stories from GENCOs, DISCOs, TCN’s to have an idea of the electricity situation. This is the equivalent of hearing from hospitals how many daily COVID-19 cases Nigeria has instead from the NCDC (Nigeria Centre for Disease Control). NERC has a very important role to play in communicating with Nigerians and a daily update on the poor electrical situation is important unless they have accepted Nigeria will never have electricity which begets the next question.
What really is the reason for the poor power situation?
Investments and funding. There are talks that the removal of electricity subsidies (as confirmed by the Minister of Finance) has affected the companies involved in generating electricity. Billions of naira have been expended on power in Nigeria and yet according to a World Bank 2021 report, as a result of these power challenges, about 85 million people, representing 43 per cent of Nigeria’s population are reportedly without access to grid electricity, making Nigeria the country with the largest energy access deficit in the world.
The removal of subsidies will exacerbate the issue or would pass the burden to customers – the latter would be understandable as that is common with energy services in the world but governments step in with pricing caps or subsidies.
Nigeria is endowed with large oil, gas, hydro and solar resources, and it has the potential to generate 12,522 MW of electric power from existing plants but until the government, investors and stakeholders get things right, power supply will always be an issue.