Nigeria is a country that prefers moving round in circles.
This perennial affliction has affected both the citizens and the leadership over the years.
It is such that the country has remained a geographical landscape that has defied all forms of logic as to why it remained tied down in one spot and struggling to realize its full potentials.
Since 1960 when it got independence from British rule it has been one step forward and several steps backward.
Even when it appears there is a ray of Hope by any government in terms of sound policy and direction, such progressive steps are always terminated by in-built problems working against the realisation of the country’s potentials.
This explains why it has remained a country of potentials, six decades down the line.
When the problem of stable electricity supply became an issue during the Second Republic, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria,UPN at a campaign rally described the then National Electric Power Authority, NEPA as. ..’National Embarrassment and Public Apathy ‘ .
This was a vivid portrayal of the frustrations experienced by the citizens over the epileptic power supply in the country.
Today, over four decades after he made the statement,the description pales into insignificance as the nation’s power supply has grown from bad to worse.
This is after successive governments tried to rebrand,reform and and recreate the power body into new outfits.
In spite of the unbundling of former NEPA into three companies, namely Generation; Distribution and Transmission – which arm the government is controlling, the power generation and distribution have fallen short of what is required for a nation of 220 million citizens.
Today,the ‘Abiku’ in power supply is such that whenever power generation peaks at 5,000 megawatts, a systemic breakdown is around the corner.
This is in spite of the fact that the generation and distribution chain is in the hand of private companies.
The national grid in which the transmission of all power generation lies has broken down more than three times during this last week.
Before this,the country has experienced,two other grid collapses in the previous week thereby pushing citizens at the mercy of various importers of all manner of Generators to power electricity even when the price of diesel and petroleum motor spirit,PMS, has jumped to the roof top.
In all,the country has experienced collapse of the national Grid eight times this year.
It started with first collapse by 11.51 am on February 4, 2024 when capacity plummeted from 2,407 megawatts to just 31megawats by 1pm same day.
But in spite of spirited efforts to improve supply and save industry,the more government intervened, the more supply becomes more difficult.
What is the fundamental cause of frequent breakdown of national grid?
Adebayo Adelabu, the Power Minister whose performance in the apparently problematic ministry has come under public scrutiny since President Bola Tinubu came into power, declared penultimate week that the collapse of the national grid will continue for as long as power generation, distribution and transmission remain centralized.
As for Adebayo, decentralization of the power sector remains the only reasonable way if the nation must move forward.
As for him, for a country to rely on a single national grid is dangerous such that, “if there is a disturbance of the grid, the country is in problem.”
Today, Nigeria power system is in serious crisis which could be solved by fundamental restructuring of the system.
Today, the situation has gone from bad to worst.
But then, the question you ask is ..what happened to the Electricity Act signed into law in 2023 by Tinubu to empower states ,regions and local governments to generate, transmit and distribute.
Said he,”it has enabled all the sub national governments,state and local governments to be able to participate in the generation,transmission and distribution of electricity.
Commendable as Adelabu’s declaration appears, twelve months after signing the Act into law, none of the states has signified the intention to generate, distribute and transmit power.
What exactly is wrong with Nigeria as a nation?
A nation that has clearly identified the source of its backwardness and stagnation but has also willingly refused to address it for purely mundane issues.
It is apparent that some forces are bent on efforts to continue bottling up the country in one Centralized garrison with it’s potentials buried under the guise of Unitarism by all means.
It is an open secret that none of the 36 states can generate, transmit and distribute electricity without the economic empowerment which only a major unbundling of Nigeria into regions and zones and consequent redistribution of resources could accomplish.
This could only be done by tinkering with the present revenue allocation formula to free the federal government of resources and give same to states and local governments.
What exactly is holding Nigeria down from doing the needful and restructure the country into zones or regions for better management?
Till date, the decision of the British to arrange the country along regional lines is to take care of our diversity subsequently ignored by the military regimes that turned the nation into a Unitary state to confirm with its command structure.
This move no doubt has compounded the nation’s political arrangement and consequent instability now threatening its existence. Every ethnic group is tired of the contraption including the North that has had power more than the rest.
Again, like the sage Awo said, ‘Nigeria is a country that loves crying when the head has been severed off the body. “
From one regime to the other, we all know the source of the problems confronting the country but prefer to postpone the evil day for illogical reasons and for both ethnic and political expediency which time and season has proved fatal for our development as a nation.
The Yoruba agitation and British ‘role’:
Once again,Sunday Igboho,the leader of the militant wing of the mainstream Yoruba self determination group led by Senator Banji Akintoye, has stirred the hornet’s nest.
Penultimate week, October 12 to be precise, he alongside others walked into 10 Downing street residence of the British Prime Minister, Leir Starmer to deliver a letter informing the British, Nigeria colonial masters whose agent, Lord Luggard amalgamated and created Nigeria in 1914, that the territory they created is not working.
The letter is to tell the British of Yoruba ethnic nations intention to leave the falling House.
While,the development is not new both to Igboho and other Nigerians,the reaction by the federal government instead gave more attention to the development.
By summoning Richard Montgomery ,the British High Commissioner to Nigeria three days after Igboho has delivered the letter, it aroused public attention.
This could encourage other ethnic groups tired of the Nigeria project to demand an exit by adopting Igboho’s style.
.
Though, Montgomery tried to convince the government that delivering such letters is a routine for the government, explanations that lack of endorsement of such by both the government and parliament is obviously trying to calm frayed nerves.
By adopting a civil approach and getting global attention which the Nigerian government helped by inviting Montgomery, the Akintoye/Igboho group has gone a step ahead of others .
However, it is ironic that what the Akintoye group achieved without fighting a bullet,the Modupe-Onitiri Abiola group ran itself out of circulation by attempting to forcefully take over government by invading Ibadan seat of Oyo state and former capital of defunct Western region.
At the end of the day, the group lost Adejumo Lateef, one of the eighteen men arrested by the Police while Onitiri-Abiola voted with her feet.
The remaining seventeen men held in Prison since their April 10 2024 misadventure now had to face the Law when the Leader of the movement has disappeared leaving her Troops undefended.
Though in a way, the Onitiri-Abiola group dared the odds and went a step beyond rhetorics by making attempt at forcefully changing the narratives, the fact that their move was quelled within hours shows lack of capacity to defend what they attempted to do.
Furthermore, that the group made such attempt when a fellow Yoruba is in Power at the Centre appears suicidal and lacks reason and logic.
What the upsurge of separatist agitations now reignited in the country has taught us all is for President Tinubu to use the proposed National Youth conference as a step towards restructuring the country along the regional structures to contain the fault lines now confronting the diverse country.
That he told Afenifere leaders when they called on him in Aso Rock months ago of his intention to embark on restructuring after fixing the economy is faulty in a way.
Since ,fixing the economy is not rocket science but a gradual process, unstable polity itself is contrary to building a virile economy giving the multi various economic and social crisis bedeviling the nation.
Time to restructure is now for delay may be too late!.