IT was too obvious to be overlooked, but I first noticed the relative improvement in power supply right from the weekend Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as president. I made alternative power supply plans to watch the live streaming of the president’s inauguration even though I ended up seeing just the tail end of it. But that was because I was busy at some work. Otherwise, there was constant and steady supply of power all through the transmission of the inauguration ceremonies and thereafter. I thought like others around me that ‘NEPA’ (would Nigerians ever accept that NEPA has since been dead?) was in a celebratory mood and would soon live off the euphoria of welcoming a new government into office. Is the present Nigerian president winning the battle against poor power supply, as against his predecessor? We expected things to change and ‘ NEPA’ to go back to its old ways in a matter of days. But rather than the situation changing from bad to worse, it has since remained the same more or less. Of course, there have been power cuts. But not in the manner we had come to know it. Nigerians may not know for how long this honeymoon-like experience would last (and they would rather want things to get better going by the general consensus of opinion in the media and among ordinary people), but they are sure of something if not of anything else: they have more access to steady and vastly improved power supply since the end of May 2015 than at any time, perhaps, in the previous six years of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The imported technocrats who all but destroyed our economy in the name of serving Jonathan were experts at bombarding us with statistics that meant nothing other than their takes on the versions of ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ they had cooked up to befuddle everyone but themselves.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was particularly adept at this- reeling out series of statistics of hundreds of thousands of phantom employments and projections for the future that had no bearing of any kind to improvements in the material condition of the lives of Nigerians. What Nigerians wanted was life in abundance, measured in terms of decent housing, employment, health cover, improved funding of education and food supply etc. But what she gave were statistics that appealed to nobody but her likes in and out of government.
Now, Buhari has not provided statistics. He does not even have ministers (which is not to say that he can do it all alone) to say nothing of parading World Bank certified experts. Yet electricity has been steady relatively. Apologists of the expired PDP administration have been quick to tell Nigerians that they should be grateful to Jonathan for whatever improvement there is now in power supply. And they might well be right given the huge amount of funds that have been expended on the dark hole that is the power sector under the Jonathan administration, without noticeable improvement in either generation, supply or distribution of power.
Which leaves us no option but to ask the obvious question: how come that the one who spent all the money had nothing to show for it but darkness and the other who took the saddle has provided light without apparently lifting a finger? What happened? The difference is both one of personality and perception. Nigerians, especially those destroying this country, know Buhari and Jonathan are two different personalities. More importantly, they view these two personalities differently. The one they know would, in a manner of speaking, take no nonsense; the other didn’t mind being trampled on and taken for a ride. Those, including officials of the power holding company and other players in the power sector, who saw to it that Nigerians lived in perpetual darkness in spite of the tens of billions of dollars expended on providing electricity- those scoundrels who deserve to spend the rest of their miserable lives in jail knew Jonathan would do nothing ad all the evidence needed to move against.
They knew he was too unsure of himself to rein in the excesses of the destroyers by whom he was surrounded. This was practical evidence of what people meant when they spoke of the man’s weakness, his inability to take charge of the presidential stage that was rightfully his but on which his subordinates and other godfathers and ethnic lords had successfully reduced him to a mere stage hand. Jonathan’s inability or failure to act in situations like these provides both practical and palpable measure of his weakness. It is part of this difference in the perception of both Buhari and Jonathan and their likely reaction to cases of corruption and/or economic sabotage that those who actively laboured to destroy the power sector and ensured that Nigerians remained in darkness, during the Jonathan administration, immediately sat up and retraced their steps once they got wind of the entry of Buhari, a supposedly ‘brain dead’ Baba-go-slow who Patience Jonathan once said should be ashamed of ‘dragging’ position with a Jonathan that was the same age as his child. Losers in the unfolding game of improved power supply are by no means limited to those who actively sought to destroy the Nigerian economy. There are ordinary Nigerians, artisans and self employed technicians, who earn their living repairing generators. These are struggling Nigerians who have come to depend on making their own way through finding success in the failure of the power sector. These Nigerians for no fault of theirs have survived on our collectively failure, providing services that our comatose power sector made inevitable. It won’t be easy but they must now find other means of survival. One such person, a young man just raising a family, called me a couple of weeks ago to lament the sudden change in situation. But what he complained about is what is bringing smiles to the faces of millions of other Nigerians.
The truth is that whatever short term benefits were accruable to relatively small sections of Nigerians from the rot in the power sector are far outweighed by the long term benefits that would in the next few years come to all if power supply continues to improve. Industries would function optimally and cut down on providing alternative sources of power for their operations. The benefits of this would percolate down the society. More hands would be hired even as prices of goods and services go down. Nigerians would have less to expend on treating respiratory diseases that are fallout from air pollution caused by generator fumes.

Mtcheew

INTROVERT:

Send me you cv, ozaoekpe@gmail.com, I will fix you up.

Fear of general change everything in power supply.

Body language

Hahaahhahahaha! You want to know? Na juju froM Daura

Can you see the disadvantage of steady electricity supply ...introvert has light in her Hut now she is back with FTC

am just here to read comments, but probably the guy below might av sumtin to say......

We know it's all sabotage,Jonathan had upgraded most transformers even in my area a foreign transformer was brought in brand new different from the old ones, mind you our power supply only hit peak during the raining season, people use less ac's this period and the dams get enough water, slow down with the propaganda man.

He made the to sit up and work.

zendy:
Everybody knows that it takes years before the structures that can guaratee improved or steady power supply are put on the ground. But APC/Buhari supporters will now give the credit of GEJs Government to Buhari after less than 3 months in office. The improved light situation has nothing to do with Buhari. Things would have improved wether he had been elected or not

Oga, I do not agree with you o. Not at this pace. Did u notice that not an extra naira was spent to get us to 5kMW. The past government wld have been forced to spend billions for what we already have capacity for.

I think you have to agree that a new sheriff is in town hence everyone is behaving atleast not to loose their job and if the sheriff is discovered to be weak they will revert to business as usual.

4ubootyman:


Oga, I do not agree with you o. Not at this pace. Did u notice that not an extra naira was spent to get us to 5kMW. The past government wld have been forced to spend billions for what we already have capacity for.

I think you have to agree that a new sheriff is in town hence everyone is behaving atleast not to loose their job and if the sheriff is discovered to be weak they will revert to business as usual.

They will not agree with you.

jars9:
We know it's all sabotage,Jonathan had upgraded most transformers even in my area a foreign transformer was brought in brand new different from the old ones, mind you our power supply only hit peak during the raining season, people use less ac's this period and the dams get enough water, slow down with the propaganda man.

Apart from Ac and other things... the dams actually overflow with more water... while during the dry season the water runs down... it is because most Nigerians are naturally daft that is why APC/buharists are washing their head with lots of propaganda.

GEJ didnt stay long enough enjoy most of the things he has done

What you see now is the results of the power reforms under the last administration minus the sabotaging efforts of APC.
https://www.nairaland.com/1530386/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-yet
https://www.nairaland.com/1579141/poor-power-supply-lagos-area
https://www.nairaland.com/1558925/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-vandalism

Those talking about sitting up of work force should remember that the power sector is now in private hands, and no longer in the hand of civil servants

5000mw My President makes productivity a norm we shall triple this in few months

It has nothing to do with what Buhari did; it's more about who Buhari is. A no-nonsense leader can accomplish much in a short time.

These APC cheerleaders should all STFU!
If PDP decides to start vandalizing thousands of kilometers of gas pipelines in the ND, there is nothing Buhari can do about it and I personally wouldn't blame him cos it's difficult to police very swampy and dense terrains! Power will drop significantly as an immiediate consequence and integrity wouldn't help the situation.

Sincere9gerian:
What you see now is the results of the power reforms under the last administration minus the sabotaging efforts of APC.
https://www.nairaland.com/1530386/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-yet
https://www.nairaland.com/1579141/poor-power-supply-lagos-area
https://www.nairaland.com/1558925/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-vandalism

Those talking about sitting up of work force should remember that the power sector is now in private hands, and no longer in the hand of civil servants

Leave those boastful goats, they should be praying that PDP doesn't pay them back in their coins by blowing up gas pipes.

I don't hope so. but May be that's a way of getting political power which now makes the arena very competitive.

zendy:



Oh come on! You honestly believe that what was holding up power all this time was the relaxed attitude of people working in the power sector? You think those people are happy to be wasting money on generators like everybody else? It is in nobody's interest that Nigeria has no light. Buhari is just someone who came to power as all the money and hard work of the previous administration started to yield result. Buhari should take no credit for the hard work of others.

Trust me, this reason of yours is just too weak, the cabals don't really care about money being wasted on generators as they profit heavily from this, do you think the private hands who owns the the Gencos and discos want their licences revoked for non performance?

Please think again.

Sincere9gerian:
What you see now is the results of the power reforms under the last administration minus the sabotaging efforts of APC.
https://www.nairaland.com/1530386/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-yet
https://www.nairaland.com/1579141/poor-power-supply-lagos-area
https://www.nairaland.com/1558925/threat-make-nigeria-ungovernable-vandalism

Those talking about sitting up of work force should remember that the power sector is now in private hands, and no longer in the hand of civil servants

Please try harder, when was APC formed that they were bigger than GEJ to sabotage the power sector and presently do think there are no saboteurs around Buhari too, please think again.

chudionu58:
These APC cheerleaders should all STFU!
If PDP decides to start vandalizing thousands of kilometers of gas pipelines in the ND, there is nothing Buhari can do about it and I personally wouldn't blame him cos it's difficult to police very swampy and dense terrains! Power will drop significantly as an immiediate consequence and integrity wouldn't help the situation.

Oh really? I agree with you sha, Pdp can try after all they are still the so called National and mega party of Nigeria lol.

Chigold101:


Apart from Ac and other things... the dams actually overflow with more water... while during the dry season the water runs down... it is because most Nigerians are naturally daft that is why APC/buharists are washing their head with lots of propaganda.

GEJ didnt stay long enough enjoy most of the things he has done

@the bolded, Oh no, the dams thing is now stale news as we use more of gas now than hydro, if you have said that the supply of gas to the plants were limited before now which GEJ tried to work on, you would have made more sense.

chudionu58:
Leave those boastful goats, they should be praying that PDP doesn't pay them back in their coins by blowing up gas pipes.

I don't hope so. but May be that's a way of getting political power which now makes the arena very competitive.

those who can really blow up the pipelines have made so much money that can even last as long as they live so they may not really be interested. A lot of the pdp guys who have billions in their accounts will choose to enjoy their loot in peace while the broke ones will decamp to APC, don't you think so?

Goke7:


those who can really blow up the pipelines have made so much money that can even last as long as they live so they may not really be interested. A lot of the pdp guys who have billions in their accounts will choose to enjoy their loot in peace while the broke ones will decamp to APC, don't you think so?

Enjoy the proceeds of criminalty while it lasts.

When GEJ was busy commissioning power stations up &down during d election period what do u people think was going 2 happen which was why d improvement started b4 he handed over,anywhere whether d praise him or not it is what God says about u dat matters

Nigeria is blessed.

We used to have atleast 18hr electricity supply in EDE, OSUN STATE, but now everything have gotten worse, we have less than 3 hr yesterday.
So may be there is improvement in your area but there is none here.

Ikoyi is in darkness again, we need body language here.