Mirage of industrialisation without electricity in Nigeria

 

I have said time and again that science, technology and innovations make a nation to be a force to be reckoned with in the comity of nations. It is not the huge population of China and India which is in excess of a billion each that makes these countries powerhouse and developed countries; it is because of their scientific and technological breakthroughs as well as innovations. In the era of slave trade, slaves were raided in Africa to work on plantations of their masters in Europe and America. With industrial revolutions when machines were designed and mass produced to do the work of human beings, there was no need to further raid slaves to work on agricultural plantations, thus, it became unfashionable to continue slave trade and subsequently, it was banned.

Industrial revolutions, as bye products of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics better known as STEM education, led to automation of most of the things being done manually hitherto. Robots, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, aeronautics, and breakthrough in information, communication technology have made the world a better place to live and enjoy. Central to industrial revolution is electricity, otherwise called power.

Nigeria has been mouthing industrial revolution for a long time without much success. Not even the establishment of Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, universities of technology, polytechnics and monotechnics, technical colleges as well as mushrooming of research institutes has made us to be a force to reckon with in science and technology. Since we are Lilliput in S&T we remain infantile in industrialisation. Today, Nigeria is a net consumer of industrial products of other countries, spending billions of dollars and other foreign currencies to import products from innovations from abroad.

One of the key drivers of manufacturing, nay industrialisation, is electricity. Where is Nigeria in terms of power generation, transmission and distribution? With all the humongous investment in the power sector, the privatisation of the old National Electricity Power Authority, transformation of NEPA to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and the subsequent privatisation into generating companies, Transmission Company of Nigeria and distribution companies, the search for stable power has remained elusive under successive government, including the outgoing one.

Billions of dollars’ worth of investment has earned the country mere 5,000 megawatts of electricity distribution with frequent collapse of the national grid.  Not a few Nigerians believe that the opacity in the entire privatisation and commercialisation of the power sector, and the massive corruption in the area are largely responsible for the parlous state of electricity supply in the country. Other ancillary factors include the lack of technical know-how and financial incapacitation of the companies that won the privatisation bids and license.

The promise of energy mix comprising thermal, hydro, wind, and solar power has remained a mirage. Many Nigerians are not connected to the national grid and have to source power from the myriads of power generating sets which come in different shapes and sizes. The most popular one being the I-better –past-my-neighbour (smallest size). Many of them are noisy and cause environmental pollution while the most expensive are the sound-proof ones. Some have to be pulled to start while others are kick started with mere press of a button. Solar energy is also gaining market acceptance. It’s a combo of solar panel, inverters and batteries to generate electricity. Unfortunately, many of these power solutions in the market are fake.

The main challenge with operating private power generating sets is the cost of fueling and general maintenance. Some of these sets are powered with diesel while others use Premium Motor Spirit popularly called petrol. Diesel is fully deregulated and as such a litre goes for between N800 and N900. Thus, running a diesel powered generating set for business and even domestic use is very expensive and exponentially increases the cost of doing business. This has made many entrepreneurs to run their businesses at a loss. On the other hand, PMS, which is heavily subsidised, is scarce. This has made many people to source it from the black market at more than double of the official price. Overreliance on this alternative source of energy is as a result of the acute shortage of clean energy from the power distribution companies.

In spite of mouthwatering promises of the DISCOS to serve customers with free pre-paid meters and pocket friendly tariffs, Nigerians are still being ripped off with estimated billings and the failure to deliver pre-paid meters even after paying for it. Not only that, customers are still largely responsible for buying cables and procuring or repairing transformers when they are faulty.  In all of these, despite sustained blackout, there’s still sustained tariff hike endorsed by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission. It’s very hard to believe that NERC does not believe much in consumer protection.

The gist of my argument is that Nigeria can only daydream about industrial revolution if there is no stable and cheap electricity supply to the teeming Nigerian consumers. Science, Technology and Innovation are all largely powered by electricity. Most industrial machines run on power. Imagine that Aba as an industrial hub of the South-East, nay Nigeria, does not have stable public electricity supply and has to rely heavily on private electricity generation. The Ilupeju and Ikeja industrial estates of Lagos, the Agbara and Sagamu Industrial parks of Ogun State, the Idu Industiral Estate of Abuja are all not enjoying any stable public electricity supply but have to build their own power plant. Many highbrow hotels, financial institutions, manufacturing companies and agro-allied industries lacked public electricity supply and have to provide their own alternate power source which astronomically hikes the cost of production and makes locally produced items more expensive than even some imported goods such as textiles and agricultural produce.

I’m yet to hear what our presidential candidates in next month’s election, especially the frontline ones, intend to do to salvage the sector and make the country self-sufficient in energy production and power generation. Without resolving this conundrum, not only will our industrial revolution bid remain a mirage, our employment and poverty reduction schemes will remain unachievable. The best way to incentivise the micro, small and medium enterprises, which are the pillars of economic growth and development, is when there is stable and cheap power to profitably run businesses.