Besides, the most impecunious among them who cannot afford the cost of private power generation result to social vices as the only surviving strategy, in the apparent absence of any safety valves or social security provided by the government. Adding to this intolerable state of affairs are the millions of able-bodied men that have lost their jobs due to routine downsizing, rightsizing, retrenchment, complete shut-down of companies or relocation of such companies abroad, occasioned by the inclement business environment.
Therefore, the lack of adequate power supply has provided a pool of able-bodied unemployed youths and middle-age adults from which politicians, with purloined public money, draw thugs to perpetrate electoral fraud, murder and other related atrocious acts.
It is regrettable that despite the pivotal role of power in the economic advancement of a country, Nigeria has not generated up to 6,000MW since independence in 1960. The three hydro-powered stations and 25 thermal stations are said to operate below capacity and are only able to generate about 4,000MW.
According to experts, with 32 million consumers on the grid system, an average of 1,000 Megawatts is required to serve a cluster of one million population. Hence the nation needs 32,000MW of electricity as a matter of urgency. However, for our current huge population, it is estimated that the country requires about 100,000 Megawatts.
The decades-long stranglehold of the Federal Government on the power sector has strangulated the Nigerian economy. This medium was never mute on the appalling state of the country’s economy vis-a-vis power supply: “Our own view that a holistic solution to resolving the seeming intractable power problem is for government to provide the enabling environment that will make each state or group of states generate, transmit and distribute its own electricity through a system that is driven by the private sector. This approach, we believe, will stem the tide of mindboggling larceny that has dogged the path of every government initiative towards ameliorating the problem of energy in Nigeria.”
We laud ex-President Muhammadu Buhari for assenting to the landmark Constitution Alteration Bills on constitutional liberalisation of the power sector, to allow States to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in areas covered by the national grid and transfer of rail transportation from Exclusive to the Concurrent Legislative List. The current rudimentary economy now needs to leapfrog in order to catch up with the developed economies. Therefore, others supplementary legislations or Acts of National Assembly have to be amended accordingly. In this connection, we welcome the signing into law by the new President, Bola Tinubu, of 2023 Electricity Bill on Friday, 9 June, 2023. The new subsidiary legislation, Electricity Act 2023, which repeals the Electricity and Power Sector Reform Act 2005, empowers states, companies and individuals to generate, transmit and distribute electricity.
The transfer of railways from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List is a watershed. Even the Independence Constitution of 1963 placed rail transportation in the Exclusive List. It’s a pleasant irony that the Buhari administration signed this ground-breaking bill into law. We may wish to recall that the first major attempt by the Lagos State government under the Jakande administration to introduce a metro line was mired in politics with the Federal Government. It was the Buhari-led military regime that inexplicably cancelled the project by fiat, resulting in colossal financial loss for a breach of contract with the foreign companies. The penalty for the cancellation of the metro line contract between the Lagos State government and a consortium of French firms was said to be about $78 million US Dollars, just a little less than the actual contract sum for the entire project!
We urge subnational governments to collaborate and take maximum advantage of rail services to boost their various economies and in addition reduce the undue pressure on our roads.
The Fifth Alteration (No.34), which requires the Government to direct its policy towards ensuring the right to food and food security in Nigeria, is a welcome development. It is hoped this is a genuine proof and not a stratagem that the political office holders are concerned about the grinding level of poverty or indigence in the country. However, how this provision will be made justiciable appears to be in the womb of time.
In the same vein, the Fifth Alteration (No.23), which requires the President and Governors to submit the names of persons nominated as Ministers or Commissioners within sixty days of taking the oath of office for confirmation by the Senate or State House of Assembly, is in the right direction.
The framers of the 1999 Constitution never contemplated a sole administrator of a President or Governor. We recall that the undue delay by the Buhari government in setting up its cabinet in 2015 hurt the economy; it is alleged that the long delay played a huge role among the factors that led to the first recession during its first term. A couple of state helmsmen even adopted the queer method as a way of saving cost, clearly a misguided approach and patent unconstitutional act.
