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Author: Gabriel Oyovota
Posted to the web: 8/19/2005 4:21:11 PM

During the 2004 African Nations Cup hosted by Tunisia, one of Nigeria’s all-important matches was mid-way when the district authority struck. The excuses, as usual, were that of decayed transformers due to old age, while the entire district was left in the dark for over one week. I cannot remember since the beginning of the year 2005, when one had listened to the NTA network news at 9.00 pm or that of Channels TV at 10 pm. The negative implication of NEPA’s inefficiency at the Festac district is obvious on the environment as night marauders often capitalise on the all- night darkness to carry out their nefarious activities; but for God’s protection and divine mercies, the stories would have been different on nightly basis. Aside from this, perhaps the most debilitating effects of NEPA’s epileptic supply are the high rate of fire incidents, which became more regular between 2001 and 2003. Without early privatisation, power generation will continue to drop by as much as 1,400 megawatt as recently reported, just as NEPA installations, including the Egbin Terminal, will continue to be shut down while the industrial sector will continue to suffer untold hardship. With high cost of production due to heavy expenditure on industrial generating plants to keep work in progress, the domino effects would naturally be on the masses who will automatically bear the brunt of high cost of production. A recent report by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) showed that the nation and indeed the industrial sector is losing over US$1 billion annually due to NEPA’s epileptic supply. This is a bad news for a growing economy like ours. One should, therefore, commend the government on the privatisation process going on in the sickening energy sector. On a serious note, however, even after privatisation and the changes in name, I doubt if all these reforms would, in any way, affect the performance and service deliveries in view of the chronic nature of the illness that has paralysed NEPA for so long. Nonetheless, since God helps those who help themselves, the only solution seems to be on the privatisation exercise, albeit, with all the political will it deserves. Concluded Mr. Oyovota writes from Lagos