Friends thanks for your contribution to the problems of electric power supply in Nigeria. We will be calling a spade a spade when we state the facts as they are. Having said that, you will recall that power transmission sub-station located between Muslim area and Olomi/Academy areas of Ibadan North, Ibadan North-East and Ibadan South-East local Government Areas of Oyo State was vandalized by suspected hoodlums who hijacked the nationwide Oil subsidy protests of 2012, burning down the power facility and cutting off large population of innocent citizens off from power supply. I am happy with your views above. It aptly explains part of the reasons why nothing has been done to restore electricity to the affected areas for almost 2 years now! With due respect to my friends and brothers. The issue of electricity supply in Nigeria is no longer restricted to Federal-State governments dichotomy. It is now an area which is undergoing gradual reforms in a sector that has suffered serious neglect and decaying technical, manpower and infrastructural assets. I still hold a copy of the letter which I wrote to Engineer Makoju over the issue of fraudulent billing systems and how it contributed to inefficiency in the system of power generation, transmission and distribution to end-users in Nigeria. The highly respected Engineer actually reply my letter and took steps to address some of my complaints that time. The power sector is now undergoing reforms which started before the exit of former President, His Excellency Papa Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, through the regime of late Alhaji Umar Yar’Adua and to the present government. Ion government, when you kickstart a process, you have to initiate a legal framework, create guidelines and institutional mechanisms through which the reforms will be implemented. This led to the enactment by the Federal legislature of the Electicity Power Sector Reforms Act of 2005 which in turn leads to the establishment of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. (NERC). To cut a long story short, the government tried to privatized the sector and concentrate her efforts as a watchdog of the sector. The former PHCN- Power Holding Company of Nigeria was broken down into IPP-Independent Power Plants, Transmission Company of Nigeria and Regional Electricity Distribution Companies through a bidding process managed by Bureau of Public Enterprises BPE. To a large extent, Sirs, the issue of relying on legal restraints or shifting responsibilities to one level of government or the other is gone forever. Today, both the public, private and Citizens have joint responsibilities in ensuring service delivery to their respective communities. Although it is agreeable that Government have responsibility to give direction to the process, both Federal and State Governments have complimentary and joint responsibilities to provide welfare services to the Citizens. Certain fact must also be noted: 1. If you have the custody of an asset which is useful to you even though such asset is provided by another level of Government, you have a duty at least, to ensure that that asset is secured to guaranteed supply of essential services. 2. Electricity is now de-politicized under the new framework 3. If I were the Governor of Oyo state, I will initiate a process to fix the facility and take credit for such move- this is the meaning of progressive politics. I recall Late President Umar Yar’Adua allowing the State Governors to tackle the problems of bad roads and after a verification exercise, they were refunded by the Federal Government- His Excellency Raji Fashola utilized this policy to fix many roads then. 4. It is a fact that the Federal Government is taking bold steps to tackle myriads of problems constituting challenges to stable electricity supply to end users in Nigeria 5. The new electricity Regulatory Commission is established among others to; i. Ensure uninterrupted electricity ii. Encourage private sector participation iii. Consumer protection iv. Fair regulation All these are geared towards adequate and stable power supply under the EPSR Act 2005.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 22:49:42 +0000
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