The Financial Times of London once described Eskom as one of the best-managed 200 companies across the globe. But however much South Africans bemoan their new electricity problems, it’s not as bad as in Nigeria. Frankly, we envy you.
A few weeks ago my residential area in the upscale Lekki Peninsular of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, was without electricity for nine days.
The previous week we went four days without public power supply for the same reason: a faulty switch gear in the feeder. It took so long to replace this component because there were no spares in the store, forcing local engineers and technicians to search frantically for a similar machine to cannibalise.
In the meantime my private generator developed problems of its own — from overuse. A power surge from the generator destroyed my switch mode power supply, a vital and expensive component of my state-of-the-art Samsung television. It also destroyed my personal computer.
One of our two fridges blew — as did my wife. Perishables that could not be consumed immediately were either fried or smoked; the rest were buried in the garden. The smell from both fridges was overpowering. Worse, the fridges provided new breeding grounds for cockroaches. The entire compound and environs had to be fumigated, but the insects, especially the small ones, proved their ability to survive in tough conditions.
With no electricity to pump water from my private borehole — my district, a new developing area, has never enjoyed the pipe-borne stuff — we had to depend for more than a week on an unhygienic shallow well dug when our house was under construction. My 10-year-old daughter mistakenly drank untreated water from the well more than once and was rushed to the hospital 48 hours later with ceaseless vomiting. Her older sister joined her the following day after a severe bout of diarrhoea.
An additional stand-by generator has become imperative. In a country where the temperature rises to 40 degrees Celsius during the dry season and diseases like meningitis are rife in some parts, it’s not surprising that all kinds of generators have flooded the market, including cheap ones from China, which produce less than 1kV. Ray Ekpu, former president of the Commonwealth Press Association, notes that the private generator is not really on stand-by in Nigeria any more. It is the state-owned utility that is actually a back-up power-supply source.
During the protracted blackout in my vicinity, barber’s salons and other small-scale businesses that run on petrol-powered generators were hit mainly because of the scarcity of petroleum products, especially premium motor spirit. The regulatory agency of the petroleum industry was squabbling with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over the integrity of imported petrol. But pubs and eateries with diesel-powered generators made brisk business, recording high patronage from individuals reluctant to retire to their homes without electricity. Diesel oil was generally available.
The very night the prolonged blackout came to an end and I was taking stock of my losses from the nine-day power outage, local TV news showed traders at the big Yaba market in Lagos who had not had electricity for a month. The next day a leading newspaper carried an article on areas in the nation’s economic capital, which had a power cut for more than six months because of faulty distribution transformers. I felt like one of those people who complain of not having shoes, only to find a person without feet.
Nigeria’s hydra-headed power problem has, of course, been receiving official attention, but the therapy often confounds everyone.
Until a week before the start of 2002, immediate past president Olusegun Obasanjo pledged that the epileptic power supply would be history from the first day of 2002. In an ironic twist there was nationwide outages for days from December 31 2001. Up to the day he quit office last May, Obasanjo never tired of assuring the nation that Nigeria would generate 10 000MW the same year.
Obasanjo’s successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, complained to visiting World Bank vice-president (for Africa) Oby Ezekwesili that a whopping $10-billion was spent on the power sector during Obasanjo’s eight years without an improvement in power supply. The new president set up a committee to explore ways to generate 6 000MW in 18 months. The energy commission set up in September 2007 has yet to have its first meeting.
As far as electricity is concerned, it is still midnight in Nigeria.
C Don Adinuba is a Nigerian writer, journalist and public affairs consultant
