Labour and other stakeholders have cried out as more Nigerians are thrown into darkness 10 years after privatisation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Expressing their worries over the sector’s inability to yield turnaround progress despite the over N7 trillion pumped into the electricity sector, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, lamented that, the investors that took over the energy sector are only robbing Nigerians of their hard earned money by throwing them into darkness.
Lamenting that the privatisation has not yielded positive results, the helmsman said, the pledged turnaround growth by those investors have only succeeded in making Nigerians pay for darkness by throwing over 86 million people out of over 200 million population into darkness.
According to Ajaero, since the handover of the assets to private owners, corruption and inefficiency had remained in the sector, noting that, no singular improvement has taken place in the sector in spite of the huge sums government had sunk into the industry, adding that, “owners of the power Generation Companies(GenCos) and the power Distribution Companies(DisCos), only succeeded in making Nigerians to believe in lies as they lacked the technicalities to improve power generation and distribution across the country.
“The power sector has remained stagnant as no significant investment was made by those who bought the GENCOs and DISCOs through proxies. What we are reaping today are the unfortunate outcomes of the errors of yesterday and the investors are almost on a daily basis smiling at banks with people’s money at the detriment of delivering stable electricity,” he stressed.
On his part, Dr Innocent Ihennacho Ogbonna described the privatisation as a set back, noting that most Nigerians, despite the hike in fuel, have resorted to self-help by depending on “I better pass my neighbour generators for survival.”
Ogbonna, a social advocate, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take drastic steps to solve the electricity supply chain problem.
It would be recalled federal government on 11 November, 2013, handed over the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to the 11 electricity distribution companies and six generation companies: namely: Abuja, Benin, Eko, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Yola Discos.
