Power: Adelabu’s Exit Should Ignite Hope

This week, Nigerians were relieved of someone who was never tired of giving them hope and telling them that a reliable power supply was in the future, not the present.

When floods of condemnation once threatened to overwhelm the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, he stated that a whopping $100 billion was needed to fix the power sector.

Contrary to expectations that he had finally resolved not to resign as minister, following what people describe as his lacklustre performance in the power ministry, Adelabu who debunked a resignation letter some three weeks ago,  had his resignation letter in full display when he met the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen. George Akume, to formally tender his exit from the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

Without any doubt, Adelabu’s failure to stabilise the power sector remains one of the major drivers in worsening the living conditions of Nigerians.

Embattled Sector

Adelabu’s performance profile is no different from his predecessors. The only difference is that he was appointed to oversee a sector that was primed to deliver at all costs. Nigerians are quick to recall a campaign promise by President Bola Tinubu, who told Nigerians not to re-elect him if he does not resolve the quagmire of the power sector. It is evidently clear that the monstrous forces working against the development of the power sector are having the last laugh.

Adelabu’s appointment as power minister was incapable of curing the recurring ailment of the sector. The power sector is now a cesspit of incompetence and corruption, thereby rendering the dream of a stable power supply an impossible feat.  If Nigerians ever hoped to overcome the challenges posed by the collapsing power sector, the years Adelabu spent as a minister were simply a negation of that hope.

Before he emerged as minister, Adelabu’s predecessors had always been involved in mindless heists of funds meant for project execution. His immediate predecessor, Alhaji Saleh Mamman, is awaiting a court verdict over alleged conversions of N33 billion for the purchase of personal property in Abuja, among other places.  The constant breakdown of the national grid has become a norm, rather than an exception, with top government officials deploying the transmission component into an oil bloc.

What Changed?

Adelabu never brought any change, but looked helplessly at the continued ripping off of national resources through subsidies and unverifiable claims of legacy debts by electricity generating companies (GENCOs), and fleecing power consumers by the electricity distribution companies through a hike in tariffs.

The categorisation of power consumers into bands was the worst rip-off. As it stands, despite clear guidelines on operations that electricity distribution companies should purchase transformers, some communities still bear the cost of transformers in their areas, including installation fees paid under the table. In all these, it has become noticeably clear that those who bought the various components of the unbundled Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have now become exploiters under corporate entities.

Those privy to the sale of PHCN had called attention to the unpatriotic manner under which some citizens, in collaboration with foreign persons, worked to take over the operations of the power sector. Apart from calling for the review of the sale of the power components, they have described those behind the purchase of GENCOs and electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) as briefcase businessmen and women.

Over 12 years since the privatisation of the power sector, the promised Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) by owners of both GENCOs and DISCOs have not lived up to their promise. With the new operators dependent on local banks for loans, some of the DISCOs have been placed under receivership to clear the mounting debts owed to the banks. The inefficiency in the electricity distribution component has become too glaring to be ignored.

The Needful

Now that Adelabu has finally resigned to pursue his governorship ambition, earnest efforts must be geared towards salvaging what is left of the power sector after many years of inefficiency caused by corruption. While Adelabu’s call on the president to appoint a coordinating minister for energy may not be strategic in the immediate terms, the review of the sales of various components of the power sector should be conducted to infuse renewed efforts at finding the problems to resolve the incompetence of stable energy to electricity consumers.

Unbridled corruption, with a compromised bureaucracy, remains the bane of the power sector. The deployment of the sector as a rental platform for business partners and cronies has obliterated any hope of swinging the fortunes of the collapsing sector into any platform of hope. Adelabu’s resignation offers the government an opportunity to evolve effective templates in turning around the fortunes of the wobbling power sector.

For the government to extricate the monster of corruption of the sector that was hurriedly unbundled into various components and sold to corporate entities that are only interested in making money but not improving the sector, a quick surgical review remains the only alternative in tackling the challenge. The lack of faith in the power sector was recently demonstrated when, last month, the government switched over to solar power, thus ending many months of embarrassing power blackouts in the seat of power. The fear is that, following this switch over to an alternative source of energy, the government may not be in a position to assess the performance of the power sector.

The government must deal headlong with the importers of power-generating sets, just as an emergency should be declared in the sector. A nation without stable power cannot attain industrialisation. The absence of stable power, caused by a collapsing national grid that is instigated by the insatiable greed of bureaucratic red necks, must be confronted by the government to rescue citizens entrapped in recurring blackouts.