The place of power in the socio-economic development of any given nation cannot be underestimated. Experts, as well as non-experts alike have unanimously come to acknowledge the fact that the dulled Nigerian economy would spring a huge surprise even if Nigeria were to have just about 15,000 megawatts of electricity, which curiously is far below the nation’s required capacity. Serious countries all over the world have virtually put behind them the issue of power generation, supply and distribution.
The Obasanjo administration committed large sums of money to realise the elusive dream of constant power supply in Nigeria. The figure differs depending on who is saying it. But the speaker of the House of Representatives officially admitted that Nigeria under Obasanjo committed about $13 billion through the National Integrated Power Project, NIPP in search of power.
The former president build thermal plants in almost all the geopolitical zones in the country; from Geregu to Mambilla, from Aloji to Papalanto, but the problem became how to pipe natural gas from the volatile Niger Delta to these far flung places. Those critical of the manner of citing these gas power plants berated the government for doing what economically could be described as madness; that is not citing an industry with the proximity of raw material in mind. Rather the only paramount consideration was geopolitical spread.
Many years down the line, Nigeria is darker than Obasanjo met it. Soon after late Yar’Adua took over, he made promises upon promises of declaring a state of emergency in the power sector, when that failed to material what has now become a bogus promise of generating 6000 megawatts of electricity by the end of 2009. Like other unfulfilled expectations, this never saw the light of the day.
But the question is how can Nigeria overcome what have become a debilitating power situation?
