After a very long time, one arm of our electric power authority had the courtesy to alert us that it would shut down for three days and we would not have power supply for that period. The last time there was a semblance of this, at least within memory for me, was 1975—I stand to be corrected—when Murtala Mohammed upon assuming office as Head of State made it compulsory for ECN to apologise for any power outage. For the uninitiated, ECN meant Electricity Corporation of Nigeria. On Monday last week, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) alerted the public that it was shutting down Egbin Power Station to allow for maintenance. But hold it, it made the announcement after it had shut the plant down. The statement reads:
“This is to notify the public that as at 11.13 hours of 18th December, 2023, Egbin Power generating station was shut down to allow the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) to maintain linking gas pipeline supplying gas to Egbin Power Station.
“The station will be shut down for three days from today.
“This means a reduction of 676MW of bulk power generated into the nation’s grid for three days and consequently the quantum of bulk power available to be delivered to distribution companies load centres for the period.”
We may wish to note that the station had been shut down before the notification. Before then in some districts, there had been no power supply for four days running. What is expected of an organisation with any modicum of respect for its market is to have a maintenance plan as well as assets replacement plan laid out and a week or two to the day of implementation of the aspect that will affect the market, the customers are alerted so they can think of alternatives. The alertness even came close to noon that the deed had been done. No thought at all for the perishable nature of materials, such as foodstuffs in freezers at a time of hyper-inflation, and also for the sake of goods that are time-bound to be delivered to clients.
The country’s generation capacity as of now is 16, 384MW. Another statistics put it at 12, 522MW. What is being generated is as follows: Hydro: 2, 062 Mega Watts; Gas: 11, 972MW; Wind: 10MW; Solar: 7MW. From this table, reliance is placed on the thermal station which is gas-powered and is the mainstay of the economy. Water levels in Kainji Dam and Shiroro are down predictably, what former President Buhari described last year as seasonal pressures. Dams are never friends of harmattan blowing through the land. An efficient organisation would bear the seasonal weather hazards affecting dams at this period in mind so the country would not be plunged into darkness. How can it be explained that on Christmas Eve, there was power outage—a day multitude in Christendom would gather in worship and praise of the Creator for sending His Son?
This brings me to the development in the power sector to which a great many may not have paid attention because it was drowned in the election petition brouhaha in town. Barely two weeks of being sworn in as President, indeed on 09 June, 2023, Bola Tinubu signed an electricity bill into law freeing the nation from the monopolistic strangle-hold of the central administration, that is, Abuja, on the nation’s electricity business. The Electricity Act 2023 replaces the Electric Power Sector Reform Act signed by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005. The new law empowers states, companies and individuals to generate, transmit, distribute electricity. The states can even issue licences to private investors who can operate mini-grids and power plants within the state. What it does not permit is inter-state and transnational electricity distribution. The states are free to make laws and create electricity markets within their boundary and regulate them. The regulation is without prejudice to the Nigerian electricity Regulatory commission to regulate electricity sector within Nigeria.
The Bill had been ready since July last year, 2022, waiting for presidential assent. For inexplicable reasons, Buhari could not sign it before leaving office about a year later. However, all along from when he was governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu had been roaring to go. As governor through PPI he sought to tear away and he began to generate power to serve Lagos. This was confiscated and whatever was generated was passed to the National Grid. Not surprising, he jumped into what he had been longing to have established when the opportunity presented itself on a platter of gold. What called for celebration, the clinking of glasses passed almost unnoticed! Consider the almost intractable challenges the nation had faced for almost an eternity. In September, 2021, it caused the Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, his job. On learning that a reticent President Buhari had booted him out of his cabinet along with Nanono Sabo, the Minister of Agriculture, he landed in hospital from shock. Buhari said on the occasion that the action was taken “to reinvigorate this cabinet in a manner that will deepen its capacity to consolidate legacy achievements.”
He said the electricity challenge plaguing Nigeria at the time was mainly caused by low gas-power generation as a result of sabotage of gas pipelines, leading to the shutting down of power plants. He apologized for the fuel and electricity challenges ravaging the land at the time. According to him, this was coupled with an ongoing routine maintenance on other gas power plants. He said the Nigerian Electricity supply Industry (NESI) and NNPC had stepped into the problem and recovery of 1,000MW was in the offing. Abubakar Aliyu who succeeded Saleh Mamman corroborated the statement, and announcing as a matter of fact that restoration of 375MW had been achieved after what he called a critical pipeline which was damaged had been repaired. Aliyu added: “I am pleased to add that a US $50 million Gas Supply Agreement was being finalised to secure the availability and sustainability of up to 880MW of under-utilised National integrated Power Project.”
Aliyu supported by the then Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed pressed and received approval of the Federal executive Council for 63million Euros for procurement of equipment to boost power supply under PPI the first phase of which was expected to provide 10 mobile power sub-stations and 10 mega transformers which were to be deployed across the country to boost and stabilise electricity supply. That was in December 2021. By April of the following year, 2022, Aliyu led a team to Frankfurt, Germany, to press Siemens Energy to hasten the delivery of earlier orders from its factories in Berlin and Frankfurt which were expected to kick-start what the Administration believed would transform the nation’s troubling electricity. There was a follow-up visit on 28 July by a delegation of engineers from the Transmission Company of Nigeria. It was led by Kenny Anuwe, managing director of the Federal Government of Nigeria Power Company (FGN-Power). Their visit was to witness factory acceptance test. They expected that by September, 2022, the first batch of mega transformers would arrive in this country. With that Aliyu was confident and he announced with glee that by that September there would be electricity supply boosting and by extension stability in the country power output and distribution.
There has not been much to show for the efforts. The investments will no doubt be of tremendous of helpful foundations for those who know their onions. But the answer lies in unbundling and throwing the monopoly completely out of the window. See from where we have been coming and for how long. The situation was so hopeless that the great journalist and celebrated columnist, Alade Odunewu a.k.a. Allah-De said as of 2006 on the occasion of his 80th birthday that Nigeria electricity supply would not stabilize in his life-time. Asked if he was hopeful that the then NEPA was up to pulling some magic to improve significantly even if not yet capable of providing electricity 24/7 as they say in modern parlance, Allah-De’s answer was direct and definitive: “Not in my life-time.”
Five years after the interview with The Nation newspaper, Allah-De passed away. NEPA as he prophesied did not deliver. That was 17 years ago. Allah-De wrote a number of articles on Nigeria’s power supply. In 2019 when I dabbled into what I called Nigeria’s “uninterrupted” power outage, on this page captioned “50 years ago…” I cited just two of his articles which I have no hesitation in reproducing today. One of them he titled “The miracle and the ECN, Allah-De wrote as follows:
“I was present when the miracle of Kainji was performed, but that does not prove my inexcitability about prodigies. I am interested in the Kainji dam if only for my own selfish end. My interest in the dam stems from my curiosity about the business of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, to which I pay warm tributes this morning for its promptness and efficiency in thrusting electricity bills into my garage door month after month.
“It is the only corporation that possesses the power to declare peremptorily to its customers: ‘Let there be light’, and of course, there shall be light; or may darkness fall upon this household. And so, father and mother, and the children, the house helps and all that dwell therein shall trip on the staircase and fall one upon the other. If you know of any other piper who is capable of displaying such magic at the dictates of his mood to the annoyance of those who subscribe to his pay packet, I would like to be informed. It has been explained that the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria was for several years the sole source of power. ‘To all Nigerians, ECN was power and the power was ECN.’
It, however, failed to wield its power competently. But the commissioning of Nigeria’s biggest-ever project, the ECN is expected to be relieved as far as power generation is concerned. The experts say that customers can now look forward to a smoother, uninterrupted electricity supply. That is to say that we do not have to reach for the candle as soon as it threatens to rain. But the question is: Was the Electricity Corporation ready for its partner in progress? The facts do not seem to answer ‘yes.’…Kainji Dam is far too important to the nation to be rendered impotent by the famous ECN. Someone should drag the corporation from antiquity so it can be introduced to the age of the dams.”
This column then wondered in his remarks: Ladies and gentlemen: Is this story familiar in the age of thermal, solar and hydro? And in the days of GENCO,TCN and DISCO? Kainji is the forebear of Egbin, Delta, Olorunsogo NIPP, Geregu NIPP and Omotosho NIPP. Their siblings include Afam IV&V; Alaoji NIPP and ASCO IPP. To the uninitiated, ECN is the ancestor of TCN and DISCO. The hydropower plants generate 30 per cent of the output while the rest comes from gas-powered plants. We have moved from the ECN to NEPA, and from NEPA, and from NEPA there was transformation to PHCN. This was broken into GENCO, TCN and DISCO. So, ladies and gentlemen, what has changed? Oh, we have changed from candles to re-chargeable lamps!
Investors should take advantage of the liberalisation of the energy sector with the Electricity Bill passed by the National Assembly in July last year becoming Electricity Act 2023 signed by Bola Tinubu and free the nation, industries and our homes from the iron grip of GENCO, TCN and DISCO. I can see some hands saying: “Me and my household, it shall be solar panels and inverters! Hurrah!!”
Port Harcourt Refinery
MY rejoicing was brought to an abrupt end when an expert sent me his thoughts. And I began to ask myself: Is the hyped arrival of Port Harcourt a fact or a hoax? The note says: “That flare start-up operation carried out during the visit of the minister, board members and CEO of NNPCL was an abnormal operation at this stage of the work…as there was actually no waste or flue gas being generated from the refinery and therefore no flue gas would be available for burning in the flare stack!” Ha! I keep my fingers crossed.
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