Jerry Uwah
The federal government took its obsession with importation of power and energy a few rungs of the ladder above the absurd when on Monday, March 24, 2014 it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the purchase of electricity from the Grand Inga Dam.
DRC is building a mega dam on the Grand Inga that could generate 40, 000 mw of electricity.
As usual, the men in Aso Rock are already bidding to import surplus power from the failed state.
A couple of years ago when impoverished Niger Republic commenced work on its first refinery, Nigerian rulers rushed in and begged the rulers of Niger to sell the crumbs from its refinery to the world’s eighth largest exporter of crude oil.
Moments later, the government of Senegal kicked off massive expansion work on its lone refinery. Nigeria rushed in a delegation to beg for the excess of the refined petroleum products from the plant. Nigeria’s dependence on refined petroleum products imports even from impoverished African countries is an anathema. The reason is that some fat cats in the petroleum industry and well-wired politicians feather their nests with the dubious subsidy that emanates from the imports.
Now someone is poised to add electricity to Nigeria’s unwieldy import bills. Two things cross the mind of any lay man on reading the story credited to Mohammed Wakili, the minister of state for power, who spoke on the irritating proposal.
The first thing is that Chinedu Nnebo, the professor of electrical engineering who presides over Nigeria’s eternal darkness might have innovated a magical means of transmitting electricity for thousands of kilometers without the use of electrical cables as transmission lines. Otherwise no one knows how a man who has failed woefully in evacuating power from Nigeria’s idle power generating plants to the national grid a few kilometers away, could handle the Herculean task of transmitting electricity through thousands of kilometers in hostile Francophone countries.
Some of the countries that the transmission lines would have to criss-cross are currently providing safe haven for the insurgents terrorizing Nigeria in the last four years.
The governments of those countries know how Nigeria is bleeding profusely from the assault of the insurgents, and they almost certainly know their hide-outs. Yet they are happy that something terrible is scourging the country they perceive as flaunting its powers as the giant of Africa. At the appropriate time those transmission lines would become sitting ducks and objects of blackmail against Nigeria. The federal government lacks the capacity to curb the vandalisation of the nation’s domestic transmission lines, now with the planned importation of power, government may have to contend with the protection of extensive transmission lines across several hostile Francophone countries.
Besides, it is not clear who would build the transmission lines for the huge import business. From a layman’s point of view, the guess is that DRC is probably too impoverished to embark on such cost-intensive project.
If the importer has to bear the huge cost of building the transnational lines, one wonders why a government that cannot build and secure domestic transmission lines which can evacuate 10, 000mw of electricity would have to invest in such huge infrastructure outside its borders.
Another source of concern which is yet to be allayed by the signatories to the MoU, is that of a possible introduction of subsidy to the imported power. Like in refined petroleum products, locally generated power would almost certainly be cheaper than imported one. If the imported one attracts higher landing cost, someone would have to pay the extra cost. The federal government’s budget is groaning under the weight of a dubious and grossly abused petroleum products subsidy. Government is looking for a way of passing the burden to the over-burdened people.
The same government would definitely not want to shoulder the responsibility of a likely subsidy on imported electricity. Even if government was willing to bear such an avoidable burden, the lessons from the current scam in fuel subsidy suggests that someone might have introduced electricity import to elicit fresh subsidy that would be used to line the pockets of a few politicians and top civil servants.
Despite abundant water and gas for power generation, the rulers of Nigeria have run out of ideas on how to generate, transmit and distribute power to millions of homes. The reason is that no one is willing to launch a frontal assault on corruption, the major cause of Nigeria’s eternal darkness and avoidable dependence on imported petroleum products.
The privatization of the power sector has worsened Nigeria’s power supply situation because the venture was deliberately sold to people who lack the financial muscle to invest in it.
The banks are not willing to advance credit to the distribution companies because of the dubious and inefficient bills collection system they operate. They only extort money from hapless consumers for services not rendered.
Those who want to escalate Nigeria’s import bills by adding electricity to refined petroleum product imports should take a critical look at the nation’s foreign reserves.
