On Saturday last weekend I was at home throughout. It wasn't by far a normal weekend for me, as my normal weekend is usually characterised by watching a lot of football. European football season as you are aware was over and coincidently, my darling Kano Pillars were on away match on that day. So I resigned to spending the day at home.
It started as if the day was going to be boring, but then around 11:30am NEPA or PHCN, whichever you prefer to use, brought back light. I was not particularly impressed because I knew it was not going to last, but I was wrong. The light didn't blink until around 7pm that day when they finally took it off. This was quite un NEPA like, especially in my area where we sometimes do spend 2-3 days without seeing even a flash of the light.
I was initially sceptical of trying to do anything with the electricity, I could not even on my tv set afraid of a disappointment when they take it off as it is quite within their capabilities to take it off simultaneously with the time I on the tv. It happened a few times anyway. But when I finally realised that may be we are in for a kind of an adventure, I begin to enjoy the light. I made my coffee in the comfort of my room, which could not have been possible if there was no light.
Anything I drank that day, apart from my coffee of course, I made sure that it was cold, in fact very cold.
The following day-Sunday- NEPA never brought light. That made me wonder how the life of an average Nigerian will change for good if we will have 24/7 uninterrupted power supply, or even less. People will buy less kerosene (which is not even available by the way). People will buy less petrol-one does not need to be sleeping and at the same time thinking how much fuel their generator will burn before the morning. I just concluded that anything that is not working in this country and of course nothing is working, it is not working because NEPA/PHCN is not working.
The government has been talking on how it wants to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth in this country. How the government intend to do that without electricity in the country remains a mystery to many people. In the developed countries and even developing countries, private sector employs more people than the government. Though in Nigeria the reverse is the case, but the ideal situation is for the private sector to employ more than the government. And you can't achieve that if there is no electricity. Provide electricity, private investors will come and jobs will be created. If everybody who is suppose to be employed gets a job, then almost all our problems in this country will be solved.
A lot has been said about security situation of this country and we are all aware that its the youth who constitute security threat. Armed robbers, kidnappers, area boys, militants and etc, are all youth who can't get better things to do that resort to those evils.
There is no gain saying that there is a lot of poverty in this country. But where there is no employment there must be poverty. And the only way to address that is for the government to create an enabling environment for private investment in the economy. And you can only do that when there is a steady electricity supply.
We are far behind in education in this country, people don't take their children to school as they can't afford it and why can't they afford it is because they are either unemployed or under employed.
The answer no doubt is electricity, but that might be too much to ask in this country which has a history of very dubious dealings in our power sector. Obasanjo spent 16 billion dollars only to be able to provide a little over 2500 megawatts. I read some where that South Africa spent just 5 billion dollars and got more than 20, 000 megawatts.
Mr. President promised fresh air for the Nigerians when he was campaigning. Many of us will wish that mr. President will only have one point agenda, which is going to be of course electricity.
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