Chief Sunday Oduntan,
is the Executive Director of Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian
Electricity Distributors (ANED). In this interview with NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, he
highlights series of challenges facing electricity distributors among other
sundry issues relating to electricity supply. Excerpts:
Do you think the
government is serious about having electricity supplied to Nigerians?
Well, let me start with 1989 to 1999, within that 10-year
period Nigeria had four different administrations. These administrations were
run by the following men: General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan,
General Sani Abacha and General Abubakar Abdulsalaam. Every year, within that
10-year period, they budgeted money for power and the population of Nigeria was
also growing but they did not build one single power plant. That alone is a
fraud. I do not want to make too many political statements but I keep saying
that if we have had a visionary leader, like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he would
have set a template that nobody can go under in terms of performance. What we
have had, has been rulers that are not leaders. From 1960 till date, no serious
effort has been made to provide power. One person made some effort and that is
former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He was the one that started this reform in 2002, he even
managed to get the law passed, the law that governed the power sector in 2005.
He started building power plants, not without some challenges but objectively
speaking, if what he started was continued by his successors, we would have had
more light because what he started then was incremental power. He was
positioning power plants all over so that if they bombed the one in Niger Delta
there would be another one somewhere else and we can be using different types.
When I was growing up, we were using hydro. Hydro is not enough, we should use
different types. Later they started this thermal station.
The thermal station is the biggest in West Africa but it has
never worked up to capacity. That is the leadership failure issue.
The truth of the matter is that there are too many
conflicting interests in Nigeria. Without mentioning names, one of the people
who wants to be president today is a major distributor of generator through
some Indians and those who distribute generators do not want power. Sometime
ago, I said one of the ways forward is that they should ban those of us,
including myself who are actively involved in the power sector from using
generators. So that if the minister of power and all heads of agencies who have
something to do with power are not allowed to use generator, we would work
harder and better but when we have an option, there is a comfort zone, a
minister goes home and puts on his generator he doesn’t have to struggle to
provide power so we are not sincere with Nigerians in terms of production of
power.
The last government that privatised, when they were about to
privatise, they sat down with people and signed a 10-point agreement and
promised to do one to five of the agreement and expected the investors to do
the remaining five. Now, the performance of six to ten is based on the
performance of one to five but the government of Jonathan did not do any of
them. The government could not respect the sanctity of contract in law. One of
the things in that agreement is that if the investors fail to perform, they
will take the Discos away from them for one dollar but I keep asking people with
this epileptic supply, how come they have not taken it from them? This is
because they know that they the government, have not done their bit. I love
Buhari as a person particularly Osinbajo and I can vouch for their integrity
but I cannot vouch for thoe working with them.
When you have a government that cannot even put its house in
order, then you know that we are doomed and the same people want to come back
in 2019. In summary the government of Nigeria is not sincere about power. But
we know what to do.
The government cannot do it alone because there is no money.
What the government needs to do is to invite
investors. The Canadian teachers’ pension alone has billions of dollars
and are looking for where to invest but they do not want to come to Nigeria.
They keep saying we are corrupt and Nigeria has not changed. Until some
ex-governors are jailed, the power sector investors will not come and invest in
Nigeria. The problem we have in Nigeria today is not that the government is not
willing.
You said that the
Jonathan government did not honour their agreement has there been any change
now?
There hasn’t been any change. Government is a continuum. A
new government that comes on board has to go back and look at that performance
agreement so that before you start blaming the operators you know what they are
going through. I used to be a teacher and a tailor if my boss doesn’t give me
scissors then I won’t be able to cut clothes and if I don’t cut, then I cannot
sew. Same with a teacher who is not provided with chalk and notes. It is the
same in power. Until they do something, nothing will happen. What they are
actually doing is that they are playing politics with power. There is so much
disconnect in the power sector but because we are in the private sector we can
say some things but even at that, we are careful because they come to us and
say if you want to live long don’t say that because we know what they are
doing. People are stealing and as long as they are doing that we won’t have
power.
The government
privatised the sector so that we can have improved power supply. Do you think
that was a wise decision?
Very wise. There are many countries where government still
controls the power sector. They did not privatise and they have excellent power
supply but in the case of Nigeria, we went the Western world way we didn’t go
east but the difference between us and them is that anything, under government
is made the leaders property. If you don’t steal then you are foolish. Too many
thieves. Even people in government don’t want to pay for power. Those are the
people we elected. Too many people in Nigeria are indolent in power and we have
them in all the states across the federation. I went to one state in the North,
the governor was so wasteful and was not even paying for power so I told him
that I would instruct the officials to cut off his light. Imagine using light
in the government house and not paying. We cannot continue with this culture of
theft. There are too many thieves. In Ogun state I caught a retired Permanent
Secretary who was by passing. We caught him and he paid every bill. He was even
begging us. If elite like that can behave in such a manner what do you expect
from the low class? Same thing happened in Ikeja GRA we wanted to give them
Pre-paid metre but they refused. Same happened in Bompai in Kano. I am the
spokesman of all the Discos, I travel
round Nigeria and when I go round, I go into neighborhoods from house to house.
In the course of doing that I get to see a lot of things a lot of scams some
perpetrated by our own staff.
If you are running at
a loss and your loss is so huge, what are you still doing in this business?
That was the reason for that force majeure and it was the
second time. We did the same under Jonathan but they kept it under wraps and
promised us they would perform.
We invested N2.4 billion in buying government asset and the
contract has a clause that whenever the business becomes impossible to run due
to circumstances beyond your control you have the right to say take your
license and give me my money back. We are not willing to remain in this
business. I serve all the investors and I know their problem. I told them in a
meeting we had that if I had half of the money they have, I will never invest
in the Nigerian power sector, I will take my money to Miami or Bahamas, put it
in a bank, go by the seaside everyday and enjoy because they borrowed the
money. That is the law, it was a 70; 30 per cent arrangement. You have to have
30 per cent of your own and borrow 70. They paid for this asset in dollars not
naira. The exchange rate then was N157 but as at 2016 it became 198. Our current
tariff is based on 198 but can anybody buy dollar for N200 now? So their
repayment and interest is now like triple of what they the borrowed. So they
want to get out but the government is not agreeing to it. They are still in the
business because nobody is willing to give them their money and let them go. It
is a regret now. Of the 11 Discos in Nigeria only one has foreign direct
investor. A business man cannot give you money for free we call. It cost
recovery, you have to recover your cost. The foreign investors are not coming
because they can see that the business that government has done with its own
people, so called friends, they have not honoured the agreement. Lack of
respect for contract is what is scaring them away.
At a point you know that the Discos were trying to generate
electricity, but along the line they stopped.
Embedded generation. What it involves is that a cluster can
be chosen in a community and they will be generating electricity for them. It
is like having a big generator and connecting some of your neighbors because
even if you don’t connect them, you will still burn the same amount of fuel.
Now, if we give you embedded generation you may be asked to pay up to 180 or
200 per KH, how many people will be willing to pay?
One of the problems facing that is that when we do
assessments and see how much it will cost us to make it happen, it is much.
Also, in most cases, we invite third parties to invest in it so it increases
the expenses because we have to pay our workers and also give the investors a
mark up. So when we do all our assessments we have to run away because people
will not pay it. Some will even promise to pay but will scam us. What we hope
will happen is that there was something the government was doing that we used to
call stranded assets. Obasanjo was doing what we called NIPP away from NEPA the
intention was to create some other pockets of generation that will not affect
the national units. Those ones are now stranded because they are in different
locations where there are no assess to fuel, in this case.
We have power plants like the Olorunsogo power plant in Ogun
State, there is another one in Omotosho on the Benin expressway but they have
never been able to perform up to half of their capacity. This is because when
the Obasanjo regime established them they didn’t carve out an assurance of gas
and until you do that, it won’t work because location matters a lot. Ogun does
not produce gas and then we now have to pipe from Niger Delta but every time
they break a pipe there, the turbines stop running.
So they are working on solar now but solar cannot give
massive electricity but incremental which is bit by bit and can equally do a
lot. They are working on different means of generating power. I believe that
there is going to be light. What I know is that effort will be made in the next
five years but we will not be able to see the results until another five years
from now and that is if they start now. If they don’t, it will be pushing it
forward. Power takes time, it is just like farm. You can’t get maize the same
day you plant it. You have to wait. I have no doubt that there will be power
but it will take time.
What are your
expectations from customers?
We would like to change the perception of people if we
could. People still look at this thing like a social service but it is not. It
is a product not different from Fanta or Coke. We need our customers to know
that. We need them to know that they have to pay for this product and also
imbibe the culture of “see something, say something “ when people are tapping
light without meters and using light without paying. People don’t speak up
about ills like that.
Our expectation is for them to know that for them to have
this product they must be prepared to pay. If we have 24 hour electricity
today, and you have a two bed-room flat, one air conditioner, one fridge and
freezer, one iron and sound system, two television sets and maybe a few ceiling
fans and bulbs, the bill every month will not be less than N14,000. So if you are
on minimum wage, you cannot pay.
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