Blackouts: Excuses, excuses …

 Blackouts: Excuses, excuses …

Nigerians have become so familiar with blackouts that it seems strange when public power supply is uninterrupted for a considerable length of time on any given day. In other words, the mentality of the public is so abused that there is a subconscious resignation to the aberration as the norm. Meanwhile, all we hear from authorities responsible for the sector are explanations of their helplessness and assurances of efforts being made, though with no qualitative difference in the experiences of consumers.  That is the bane of public electricity supply in this country today, and the major underlying factor of an energy crisis that has been compounded by high costs of alternative power sources such as diesel and gas.

In recent weeks, the national power grid collapsed a couple of times only hours apart. Against the backdrop of no fewer than three collapses this year already, the grid collapsed again penultimate Friday at about 6:30pm, and yet again at about 8:30pm. Minister of Power Aliyu Abubakar blamed the collapses on vandalisation of power infrastructure and assured that efforts were underway to restore the grid to optimal function. But as at the time Hardball was taking on this subject, not much has changed in the overall state of power supply – in most areas, at least. The power minister early last week blamed recent blackouts on “act of vandalism on a transmission tower on the Odukpani – Ikot-Ekpene 330kv double circuit transmission line, thus resulting in sudden loss of about 400mw of generation (that) led to a cascade of plants shutdown across the country.” According to him, power on the grid was being restored by the System Operator, while other on-grid power plants had been deployed to bridge lost generation capacity from the Calabar power plant. He assured that government was probing the immediate and remote causes of recurring grid failure.

Later last week after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the power minister again blamed incessant blackouts on acts of sabotage that included abduction of foreign personnel working on various power projects, which have stalled completion of such projects, and attacks on power installations. He lamented that acts of sabotage had deprived the country of investors and development, and urged Nigerians to join government in waging war against saboteurs. His Information and Culture counterpart, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, reinforced the narrative by saying all Nigerians suffer whenever there is an act of sabotage on public facilities. “What the Minister of Power is saying is that it’s not really about inefficiency or not caring on the part of government, but that citizens also have a role to play in this,” he explained.

Between 2013 when the power sector was privatised and now, the national grid has collapsed more that 130 times. The power minister once said it was a global phenomenon not peculiar to Nigeria, even though we know public electricity rarely fails in Benin Republic next door, not to mention other places further afield. Now it’s the public’s duty to stop vandals or bear the brunt. Excuses, excuses…