The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has taken a swipe at Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu for claiming that 150 million Nigerians now enjoys “adequate electricity” with 5,500MW.
President of the NLC,.Comrade Joe Ajaero who condemned what he described as an “outrageous statement,” noted that as a result of outrageous electricity tariffs in the face of “grinding darkness,* millions of Nigeria s have been forced to choose between spending their meagre resources on food to sustain their families, or to pay electricity bills which have become very expensive.
Ajaero who further described the minister’s statement on adequate power supply as a wild assertion that was not only pretentious but a bad joke on suffering Nigerians, regretted that the power sector was being manipulated for private profit at the expense of national progress.
He said: “Perhaps, the Minister wants to perform Jesus’ miracle of feeding 5,000 persons with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. For the Minister to suggest that over 150 million Nigerians have access to reliable power in a country that struggles to generate a meager and inconsistent 5,000 megawatts—far below the global benchmark of 1,000MW
per one million people—is to insult the intelligence and lived realities of
Nigerians.
“By that standard, Nigeria should be generating no less than 150,000MW to justify such a claim. Yet, even on its best day, the country’s electricity generation has never exceeded 5,500MW—and that figure remains
unstable and unreliable.
“We want to ask; Is Nigeria’s standard different from world standard? Where are the power plants that make this level of supply possible? Where is the upgraded transmission infrastructure to support such output? Why are our homes still shrouded in darkness and our factories shutting down daily?
“This is not how performance is measured but could be likened to a joke carried too far. The truth is that millions of Nigerians, from urban slums to rural communities, continue to live without access to electricity. The few who
have access do so under constant threat of disconnection, blackouts, and financial exploitation through a complex pyramid of inflated tariffs and arbitrary billing.”
Ajaero noted that the “crisis* in the power sector originated from the the “grand betrayal” explained to be the privatisation of the power sector in 2013.
“An exercise that handed over the nation’s critical infrastructure to cronies for just N400 billion. Over a decade later, there has been no improvement in service delivery. Yet, these same GenCos and DISCOs, which have failed the nation woefully are to receive over N4 trillion in public subsidies with zero accountability.
“It is disheartening that after over 12 years of privatization; the power sector has not experienced any significant capacity expansion. No substantial infrastructure renewal despite trillions spent. Unfortunately, and predictably too, there has been no sanction for incompetent DISCOs and GenCos as outlined in the Privatization agreement because the buyers seem to be the same as the sellers.*
Ajaero criticised government’s plans to sell off the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the last publicly owned component of the power value chain, rather than fix the rot in the power sector.
“This move is not reform; it is economic ruse dressed in bureaucratic doublespeak. It is an attempt to swallow the remaining power
asset by the ruling elite at the detriment of the suffering Nigerian masses. We are worried that the already hijacked entities in the name of privatization have grossly underperformed and you want to go the same route with the remaining one – the outcome of course will not be different.
“The recent electricity tariff hike, masked under the so-called “Band A, B, and C” classification, is nothing but a sophisticated scheme to legalize exploitation. While DISCOs have raked in over N700 billion from helpless
consumers, power supply remains epileptic, erratic, and inaccessible to the majority.
“Millions of Nigerians are now forced to choose between food and electricity bills. It is apparent that those who preside over the helms of affairs have either lost their sense of humanity or do not entirely care about the
consequences of their actions on the masses who are undergoing the most
severe hardship in our history as a nation.
Meanwhile, workers in the power sector, who continue to hold the crumbling system together, remain poorly paid and grossly undervalued, while top NERC officials and private sector profiteers enrich themselves in a festival of regulatory impunity. This is most unacceptable and all patriots must speak
up against this apparent insensitivity and grandstanding in the name of
governance.
“What is going on presently is clearly not a reform but an organized profiteering Our final Word to the Minister of Power; Nigerians are tired of propaganda and statistical gymnastics. Cease from insulting the intelligence of the people with fabrications and false hope. Nigerians deserve more respect. If you generate, transmit and distribute more power, we will see it in our homes and
factories; not on the pages of newspaper and on television.
Ajaero warned that the NLC would not allow the rot in the power sector to continue saying,
“The Nigeria Labour Congress will not fold its arms while Nigerians are exploited by economic fat cats. We are prepared to deploy all democratic and lawful means to continue to expose and resist all grand deception targeted at the Nigerian masses. We will continue in our quest to restore equity and
reclaim the power sector for the Nigerian people. Let there be light—not lies.”
