Nigerians are presently battling with twin problems of petrol scarcity and incessant blackouts. Most residents in Abuja and Lagos have been complaining that since the beginning of the year,
the hours in which they get power supply have been reducing and for most of them it means double punishment as they spend hours in queues at filling stations to buy fuel and hours in blackouts at home afterwards.
Thus, it is crystal clear that Nigeria’s energy problems are not only in the oil sector, they are also in the power sector as the power sector has been performing far below its potential for the past decades and the Federal Government seems to have been scratching the survey in its efforts to revamp the sector.
If one looks at the sector, it has not really recorded any meaningful growth in the past decade. Power generation has at best been oscillating between a peak of 5,000 megawatts and zero (when there is system collapse).
And unlike the successful telecom sector that was successfully privatized and does not need any government support, the power sector is perennially in need of government support as the investors are creaking under the strain of the loans that they took from Nigerian banks to purchase stakes in the power companies during privatization.
It may be too late in the day now for the Buhari government that has about 15 months left to do anything fundamental about the problem of the power sector. In the past six and half years of this administration, it has been watching the problems rather than proffering lasting solutions to them.
Thus, presently, the country continues to celebrate 5,000 megawatts peak power generation, which it also celebrated a decade ago. There is no gainsaying the fact that the power sector needs a complete overhaul for better and sustainable growth.
The sector is already on a wrong path and the administration after Buhari needs to look at revisiting the privatization of the sector, with a view to attracting well-heeled investors that would have billions of dollars to invest in the sector.
The sector does not need miserly investors, but investors ready to invest heavily to drive its growth. Besides revisiting privatization, the Federal Government, with the support of state governments, also needs to work hard at decentralizing the power supply system. The one grid system needs to be broken down into more units for better management.