The northern part of the country, tragically, to say the least, is being held in a vice of both natural and man-made circumstances. Perhaps, more telling because of their debilitating impact on the region’s economic life are the man-made factors —power loss, especially. The national power grid has been down these past weeks, with the North taking the severest toll.
Not that this is the first time that this has happened. In this fast ending year, the nation has suffered more power outages than in the preceding years combined. But the present ‘darkness’ affects the North mostly. Its economy that is already suffering as a result of insecurity, caused by banditry, kidnapping and sectarian violence, is taking a further beating from this current power blackout. Homes are in pitch darkness and the cold dry Harmattan winds are fast approaching. The informal sector of the economy, arguably the biggest and most vibrant, is struggling because of a lack of electric power. The darkness provides a convenient cover for criminals to operate.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to not only have the collapsed grid restored but also ensure it is reliable henceforth. Mr Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, promised penultimate Wednesday that the sabotaged part of the grid that brings power to the northern states would be restored in the next fortnight. He spoke while taking questions from federal lawmakers. “I assure you that within the next 14 days, the repairs will be completed, and power will be fully restored to the North,” he said. Mr Sule Abdulaziz, Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), had earlier said repairs on “the damaged transmission line that led to a blackout in northern Nigeria will be completed by November 3, 2024.” According to him, “a siege laid by bandits significantly hindered initial attempts to repair the vandalized 330kV Shiroro-Mando Line 1, and this disruption ultimately led to the collapse of several other towers along the line. He said TCN engineers had been deployed to “complete the restoration and is set to distribute approximately 500 to 600 megawatts to the northern region by Sunday (the one before the last).”
Asked what the company was doing to stop the vandalism on transmission lines, Abdulaziz said, “We have been cooperating with owners of the land, that’s with the local people. We have also been cooperating with the security agencies, with civil defence, with the Nigerian police and with the army to make sure that they patrol our transmission lines. We also used to engage locals, even providing them with transportation and phones so that if they saw anything happening on our transmission lines, they would quickly call us. So we are working on that. However, what we’re talking about is vandalism. Even if you have a chopper to identify the faults, we need to go there to work, but it is difficult because of the security situation. People have asked what we’re doing to avoid recurrence, the truth is that we have been talking. We’ve been engaging the locals, security agencies and many groups to help us protect our equipment. Grid collapse is not just the problem of TCN.”
The managing director made it clear that the problem was multi-faceted. “We are the managers of the grid and transmission networks, but other faults from generation and distribution networks can also trigger a collapse,” he said. However, “We are not relenting; we’re working to replace outdated infrastructure to ensure we have a more stable grid. If you look at what used to happen before, the situation used to be worse but gradually, things are improving. And we’ll continue to work to get them to even be better.”
Promises and promises, which we have heard several times before. Abdulaziz said the matter before now was worse. But truth be told, we cannot imagine anything worse than what is happening now. Indeed, many Nigerians had expected the Minister of Power to have gone in the latest cabinet reshuffle by President Bola Tinubu. Surprisingly, he has kept his job in the face of this national disgrace of a failed grid.
In the longer term, the government is talking about decentralizing power generation and distribution. Specifically, it is considering allowing regional and state ownership of grids. But people are skeptical, largely because they don’t see the will power to make it work. For instance, there is legislation that allows state governments to operate independent power generation plants to upload more power on the grid. But only a couple have done so and even these ones are struggling. Still, the additional power generated, it has been discovered, cannot be distributed and supplied to end users because TCN’s distribution infrastructure is notoriously old and fragile. This isn’t to mention the threat of sabotage and criminality. So, as we see it, the problem isn’t that there’s less power being generated but that what is produced cannot all be distributed.
We recall this was what exactly led to the unbundling of the old Power Holding Company of Nigeria and the privatisation of the generation and distribution functions of the old monopoly. Yet the distribution and supply side is disturbingly inefficient. The Discos that emerged from the unbundling have turned out to be anything but what was expected of them. A lack of financial muscles and the strangulating influence of the Power Ministry’s top officials are too high a hurdle to scale. In other words, corruption in political high places is the bane of the power sector. How to get rid of this is the real conundrum.
It has been suggested that investments in the sector be increased to match increasing power demands. Perhaps so, but two things must be borne in mind. Investments in the sector have kept pace with time really. For example, the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) put over $16 billion in the sector but nothing good came out of it. Part of the money ($5.8 billion) was meant for the Mambilla hydro power project in Taraba state that was started in 2003. Two decades on, not one kilowatt of the 3,050 kilowatts of electricity expected from it has been delivered. Corruption devoured it and today the project is under arbitration. End of story.
So, what is the way out? Getting rid of official corruption, which will take ages. As for the North, what it should consider doing in the interim is turn to solar power. This is less expensive than hydro or thermal power. The region has an abundance of bright sunlight, which is the source of solar power. This is what is lighting up the thriving economy of the Middle East. The North should go this way too.
