egalitarianism:
Damn. My friend, rest on. You use your youthful days for benefiting others, thereby writing your name on platter of gold. Shame on youths of nowadays, all you do This age is to talk about sex, relationship, gossip and sorts. You don't sit alone and think of how to benefit others. This is why older generation keep riding your l like horse, you're not serious with your future. You're not ready to take it into your hands. WAKE FROM SLUMBER. USE YOUR HEAD.
Though I won't still stop clamouring for retiring the old thieves, to pave way for the sound minded youths. God bless you all my children. Stay safe and out of trouble

Preach it.

kikero:


Most of the grid was expanded in the 1970's...after the war.

Also the reason why our power system does not work is simple. We run it as a socialist enterprise, not as a capitalist enterprise.

Look at GSM. When GSM came to Nigeria, Obasanjo allowed them to exploit us well well. They came, and they charged us heavily for phone call, and bad service (I can recall when I got a repeated call from Lagos from a number I knew not between 9-10 pm in 2004...when I was trying to study for heaven's sake!)..and used the money to build up our structures.

Meanwhile for power, we 1) put it under government control from the word go. 2) charged bills that were kept low for the masses 3) overexpanded the grid for political purposes (people in the rural areas got power) 4) and then most Nigerians refused to pay for power. Between the polticiasation of power, and the fact that it was being not run as a profit making enterprise, the amount of cash needed to make things better wasn't enough.

Infact today, power is not run as a profit making enterprise. Discos and Gencos cannot set prices, prices are set by NBET....which means that all the DISCOS have been losing money since 2014. (and one even gave up in 2018...because they could no longer run at a loss). The grid is overexpanded. Banks and other financing angencies cannot give loans to the power sector. People are refusing to pay for power.

Yes, maybe we should have kept the man in office...but he won't have guaranteed power. The same problems would have happened, because power in Nigeria is not run for profit, and because Nigerians expect power for free.

A very illogical narrative. It wasn't the lack of capital that made our power sector degenerate to rot, it was a disoriented political system that is lacking in vision, will and commitment. Electricity is a social amenity that every citizen deserve to assess regardless of financial, social or political status. Nigerian government, over time continue to derail from their primary role of managing and distributing the nations wealth for the benefit of all, instead we have a nation where inequality had widened considerably over time with a bulk of the wealth at the hands of past and present political leaders.

In fact, your idea of resources distribution is very anti people. You attribute the failure of our power sector to low charges of consumer but fail to consider if the low charges is commensurate with peoples income. Even before the latest privatization, many home default on electricity bill and were subjected to disconnection because they couldn't consistently maintain the allocated bill.

The era of privatization has worsened things completely and this has expose the greed inherent in the system. Disco's now charge exorbitantly for power that wasn't supply. It may surprise you that many homes are abandoning national grid for solar power.

Rather than blaming the hapless masses who has been marginalized in the national scheme of things, why not ask our government what the have done with the billion acrued from oil many in decades. What about the billion that was said to have been invested into power sector but were swept under the carpet. Did you remember how power probe has failed, despite mammoth of evidence regarding misappropriation.?

kikero:


1.Kenya pays 0.222 dollars per killowatt hour for households. Nigeria pays 0.067 dollars per kilowatt hours for households.

2.If you want something to grow, you should pay well for it. We paid high prices for GSM. See where it is now.

3.A situation where 50% of subscribers to DISCOS don't pay for power....if you were running a business and 50% of your customers did not pay....

4.Yes, $16 billion was stolen. True. But even if it was spent....we actually need something like 3 times that amount annually before we can get power.

5.In case you didn't know, power has been privatised since 2014. Government has nothing to do with it, except collect transmission and keep prices low.

The Discos are criminals.
What stopped them from providing PPM to all households?
What stops FG from allowing regional Grid? They won't to control how each region grows.
Thank God Aba is almost going out of the national Grid.

He died Jan 2020 but y'all had to go dig up is corpse. To prove what point exactly? Smh

post=90972495:
His Son China Danforth Onyemelukwe top investment banker in Europe

Top investment banker in Europe lives in Westport, Connecticut?

What are you smoking?

miketayo:


Not true rural areas today would have be more developed than it is today, we would have stable power supply, our way of thinking and living would be similar to d 60's and 70's.

They won't. Colonial government will only develop the areas that satisfy London, not Nigeria.

Look at Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
In Namibia u can literally go out all day and come back to step on ur white bedsheets without staining it.
Zimbabwe that gained independence early like us is d only shitty country among those 4

1.Botswana has 2 million people, and is one of the world's largest producers of diamonds, and platinum. Of course they have enough money. Nigeria produces 2-3million barrels of oil, same as the UAE...for 200million people. UAE has 11 million.

2.Namibia is the same, plus they also have a very low population. Infact if you want Nigeria to be like Botswana and Namibia, cut our populaiton by 195million people, and the remaining 5 million would live well.

3.South Africa is depreciating. Besides, the reason why SA looks good was during arphateid, the spending was disproprotionately on whites. That's why the country looks very good. Outside the areas of economic importance to whites, the rest of the country is as underdeveloped as Nigeria.

4.Zimbabwe...simple. Disproprotionate spending on whites. When they got independence, Mugabe tried to extend the spending to blacks, and when that did not work, seized white farms, destroying the basis of his country's economy...agric exports (which were falling anyway).

5.Prosperous countries are industrial countries. If the price of platinum and diamonds falls, Botswana and Namibia and even SA would be broke. Better for them to be industrial.

Na Europe them dey spend their money

Ahaa! No wonder our power sector is not working.

kikero:


Most of the grid was expanded in the 1970's...after the war.

Also the reason why our power system does not work is simple. We run it as a socialist enterprise, not as a capitalist enterprise.

Look at GSM. When GSM came to Nigeria, Obasanjo allowed them to exploit us well well. They came, and they charged us heavily for phone call, and bad service (I can recall when I got a repeated call from Lagos from a number I knew not between 9-10 pm in 2004...when I was trying to study for heaven's sake!)..and used the money to build up our structures.

Meanwhile for power, we 1) put it under government control from the word go. 2) charged bills that were kept low for the masses 3) overexpanded the grid for political purposes (people in the rural areas got power) 4) and then most Nigerians refused to pay for power. Between the polticiasation of power, and the fact that it was being not run as a profit making enterprise, the amount of cash needed to make things better wasn't enough.

Infact today, power is not run as a profit making enterprise. Discos and Gencos cannot set prices, prices are set by NBET....which means that all the DISCOS have been losing money since 2014. (and one even gave up in 2018...because they could no longer run at a loss). The grid is overexpanded. Banks and other financing angencies cannot give loans to the power sector. People are refusing to pay for power.

Yes, maybe we should have kept the man in office...but he won't have guaranteed power. The same problems would have happened, because power in Nigeria is not run for profit, and because Nigerians expect power for free.

Is it logical to allow a monopoly to set their prices for essential but scarce product?

What had been the positive impact of privatising the DISCOs?


Is Nigerias planners not being stupid? We need 30GW of electricity. We produce roughly 4GW and yet went to privatise the distribution rather than the generation! Does this make sense?

kikero:
.

Well, EDF France made a profit of $5.6billion euros in 2019. Power companies have to make a profit somehow.



And I am telling you that 1) they experienced delays in collecting money from government 2) they need far more. One estimate is $900billion over the next 30 years...



And here in Nigeria, people do illegal connections. Many people enjoy power without paying for it. And when the DISCOS go to stop them, their workers get beaten up and chased away.



And Nigeria is not collecting enough in taxes. Our tax to gdp ratio is 5.8%, Ghana is 14%, South Africa is 23%. We rely solely on oil.(There is a reason why Fowler was sacked...and it wasn't jsut for politics. )

Analagoue man.
How can you be talking of paying bills when the DISCOS have refused to install PPM in all households?
I support the man handling of any stupid DISCOS staff that tried to disconnect you based on Estimated billing. Estimated billing is evil and those that drive that should be seen as evil too.

obaaderemi:
My son, you made sense! The youths of today in Nigeria are an embarrassment. If the girls are not watching those empty nollywood movies they are talking about fashion and sex. As for the boys, if they are not watching wrestling, they are talking about nairabet and such things.
You can't hold a meaningful intellectual conversation with them.
I was at a seminar not long ago and I asked the boys and girls present if any of them knew George Orwell, author of Animal Farm. They had neither heard of the book nor its author. It's pathetic.

Stylized way of recommendation, but thanks anyway, I'm glad I looked it up.

SLAP44:
10 points to note about this topic.

1. Onyemekukwe was a trained expert on electrical matters

2. He designed Nigerian electrical grid and was instrumental to running it till the war broke out

3. He must have fled Lagos like others

4. When he returned, his position has been given to one of those who won the war

5. The person who took his position might be a mediocre quota system figure head who is just occupying the position just because they won the war.

6. Electricity expansion and maintenance took a nose dive as the winner of the war took all money making positions and milked the nation dry.

7. Onyemekukwe got frustrated and left to form his own private company after the war, later got fed up as Nigeria continued to die in instalments, so he relocated abroad to allow Nigeria to die very well.

8. Till today Nigerian electricity is still wallowing in the wilderness with zero hope in sight.

9. Till we find good people that will forgive Nigeria and work with their whole energy and God given talents, Nigeria will continue to descend to Yemen levels.

10. That is the story of Nigeria.

This is a first class executive summary by a First Class brain.

alfredilly:


A very illogical narrative. It wasn't the lack of capital that made our power sector degenerate to rot, it was a disoriented political system that is lacking in vision, will and commitment. Electricity is a social amenity that every citizen deserve to assess regardless of financial, social or political status. Nigerian government, over time continue to derail from their primary role of managing and distributing the nations wealth for the benefit of all, instead we have a nation where inequality had widened considerably over time with a bulk of the wealth at the hands of past and present political leaders.

It was, and is lack of capital.That's why we have privatisation in the first place.

In fact, your idea of resources distribution is very anti people. You attribute the failure of our power sector to low charges of consumer but fail to consider if the low charges is commensurate with peoples income. Even before the latest privatization, many home default on electricity bill and were subjected to disconnection because they couldn't consistently maintain the allocated bill.

You are calling me anti-people, and then if you ran your business, and I came asking you to sell below the purchasing price of what you are selling..how long would you surivie in business? Welcome to capitalisim...I don't like it...but it is the only way to make money.

The era of privatization has worsened things completely and this has expose the greed inherent in the system. Disco's now charge exorbitantly for power that wasn't supply. It may surprise you that many homes are abandoning national grid for solar power.

Good for them. Meanwhile, DISOCS have to pay salaries, pay for improvements. How do you propose they get money? By charging below the production cost for power? Okay....

Rather than blaming the hapless masses who has been marginalized in the national scheme of things, why not ask our government what the have done with the billion acrued from oil many in decades. What about the billion that was said to have been invested into power sector but were swept under the carpet. Did you remember how power probe has failed, despite mammoth of evidence regarding misappropriation.?

I blame the government too...for running a quasi socialist economy that does not encourage investment in power. Who is going to invest in something where the government is setting the price.??

You people think that companes come and take your money and hide it in a big hole somewhere.

kikero:


The cities would be well developed, but the rural areas won't be well developed.

Also, there would be mass segregration, and disporprotionate spending on white settlers vs black settlers. Roads won't reach everywhere, and getting a hosptial in your region would involve a trip to the Colonial office in London.

Inasmuch as Nigeria could be better, I'm happy we got indepenedience. We are not developed because we are a resource dependent country, and we have refused to1) do the hard work to be an industrial economy 2) refused to charge high enough taxes. 3) run power , and oil and many other sectors as 'non profit making ventures'.

Nigeria was like a baby who was given independence. Squander is the keyword.

BTW
Our inter state roads, rails and power would have been second to none in Africa. When last did you get water from waterworks?

caleboxylic:


Analagoue man.
How can you be talking of paying bills when the DISCOS have refused to install PPM in all households?

And you think that PPM installation has solved the problem of stealing? It hasn't sadly. (and yes, I beleive all DISCOS should install PPM...so calling me analogue is besides the point)

I support the man handling of any stupid DISCOS staff that tried to disconnect you based on Estimated billing. Estimated billing is evil and those that drive that should be seen as evil too.

Good, then don't compain when people refuse to invest in your coutnry because 'everyone is violent'

Come now, you bark at Boko Haram for violence, and here you are encouraging violence towards people doing their job.

shadeyinka:

Nigeria was like a baby who was given independence. Squander is the keyword.

Well, we weren't. The issue is, we choose resoruce dependency over industrial and educaitonal development.

It's far easy to sell and import stuff, than it is to make the same stuff.

BTW
Our inter state roads, rails and power would have been second to none in Africa. When last did you get water from waterworks?

1.They won't have been. Plus, the roads would have existed for getting goods to the port, and won't have integrated us with other parts of Africa.

(Colonialism was bad in some ways. For instance, at independence, if you wanted to make a call from Lagos to Abidjan, the call had to go through exchanges in Paris and London. Now, they don't).

2.I got water from waterworks as recently as 2019...before moving to house with borehole.

kenigwe18:
Sometimes I ponder how Nigeria would be if we hadn't gain independence..... Alot of white girls on the street

kenigwe18:
Sometimes I ponder how Nigeria would be if we hadn't gain independence..... Alot of white girls on the street

You would be their slave

[quote author=kikero post=90974355][/quote]

What job are they doing?
Extorting Nigerians, right?

No PPM No Electricity payment is the new slogan here.

What does it cost to install PPM on the poles? They don't have the electricity to distribute and our TCN no dey help matter.

They should allow regional or state grid.

shadeyinka:

Is it logical to allow a monopoly to set their prices for essential but scarce product?

The DISCOS aren't necessarily a monopoly...plus NEPA was one, and yet..

What had been the positive impact of privatising the DISCOs?

When they are having their prices controlled by government? Alright economist....tell me what happens when governemnt controls prices of everything?

Is Nigerias planners not being stupid? We need 30GW of electricity. We produce roughly 4GW and yet went to privatise the distribution rather than the generation! Does this make sense?

You got $900billion lying around to spare? Over the next 30 years. (Our budget for this year was $26billion).

caleboxylic:


What job are they doing?
Extorting Nigerians, right?

No PPM No Electricity payment is the new slogan here.

What does it cost to install PPM on the poles? They don't have the electricity to distribute and our TCN no dey help matter.

They should allow regional or state grid.

1.Well, capitalism, everyone extrots to provide a service. If them GSM companies were not allowed to extort us, I won't be typing this from the comfort of my home. I would be in one internet cafe struggling with slow connections ...

2.I agree PPM is important. But we also have to get rid of our 'we must have power for free' mentality.

3.Regional or state grid, run by states with budgets not up to $2 billion dollars. Meanhwile our grid needs something like 100billion dollars to fix.At the end of the day, states or regions will HAVE TO CHARGE HIGH POWER RATES to set up the grids, talkless of run them.

ModelX:
I wonder how it felt spending your last years and dying in a strange land. Deserters.

I will prefer to die in Canada than to buried in Nigeria soil. That is because Canada is closer to heaven while Nigeria is closer to hell

kikero:
OP, not to be petty, but your man was not the father of electricty in Nigeria.



That would have been long before your 'father of electricity was born.

More information from this Covenat University lecture here (PDF)

From ur post, did u mention any human?
Argue with sense abeg.
Someone said the man is the father of electricity in nigeria, u argued he's not, yet didnt bring up any name.
Ur argument is like saying Michael faraday is not the father of electricity, but Winchester electricity company is.

egalitarianism:
Damn. My friend, rest on. You use your youthful days for benefiting others, thereby writing your name on platter of gold. Shame on youths of nowadays, all you do This age is to talk about sex, relationship, gossip and sorts. You don't sit alone and think of how to benefit others. This is why older generation keep riding your l like horse, you're not serious with your future. You're not ready to take it into your hands. WAKE FROM SLUMBER. USE YOUR HEAD.
Though I won't still stop clamouring for retiring the old thieves, to pave way for the sound minded youths. God bless you all my children. Stay safe and out of trouble

I AM NOT IBO HELP I CAN NOT HELP WONDER IF IBO RULED NIGERIA AS MUCH AS HAUSA

I WONDER WHERE WE COULD HAVE BEEN AS A PEOPLE

blowjohn:



From ur post, did u mention any human?
Argue with sense abeg.
Someone said the man is the father of electricity in nigeria, u argued he's not, yet didnt bring up any name.
Ur argument is like saying Michael faraday is not the father of electricity, but Winchester electricity company is.

Well, he probably was the first Nigerian chief electrical officer of the ECN. which while an important post, does not mean he was the 'father of electricity in Nigeria' as he did not originate electriticy in Nigeria, or invent electricty in Nigeria.

Good morning.

Kemillion:
is it here in Nigeria or abroad

Why we’re investing $1 billion in Nigeria, by chairman, Colechurch group



Diminutive and unassuming, he does not just pride himself as the first chartered Electrical Engineer in Nigeria but matter of fact, is the founder and group chairman of Colechurch International Limited, a project, promotion, management and finance company which he founded in the UK in 1976 and was chief executive from then till about eight years ago, when he handed the job to a Briton who now heads the company in London.
Today, Colechurch is active in 32 countries worldwide and has head office in London and a sub-head office in the US.

The group has an asset base of about $300m and annual turnover last year was $125m while this year’s is expected to be $140m. The staff strength worldwide is 1,800.
Onyemelukwe has an impressive and perhaps, intimidating profile. He bagged an Engineering degree in 1956, from the University of Leeds and an Economics degree of London University in 1960. He has written and lectured widely on the power industry, economic development and growth.

His books include Problems of Industrial Planning and Management in Nigeria, Men and Management in Contemporary Africa, Economic Underdevelopment: An Insider View and The Science of Economic Development and Growth: The Theory of Factor Proportions.

As a non-executive chairman now, he is at the company’s US office, where he operates from. A member of various institutions of electrical and mechanical engineers, fuel technologists and so on, Onyemelukwe has brought his company to Nigeria to invest. The total project cost is about $I billion, but the economist cum engineer, has his share of tales of frustrations and assessment of the Nigerian environment as a potential investor.
For example, he cited bureaucratic bottlenecks and lack of data/statistics to aid a potential investor as part of the frustrations in Nigeria.
He describes the country as one of the poorest 10 in the world, stressing that a lot of Nigerians are lazy and those with money hide them.

His story
In 1961, I had to return to Nigeria because of the nation’s independence. I was then made the chief engineer of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria. In 1961, the British handed over to us, so I stayed in the country till about 1972, then went back to UK in 1976 where I founded Colechurch. We as a company have been in existence for more than a quarter of a century now. We did initially come to Nigeria in 1978/79 and we were at that time interested in projects here. We did a $200m set of projects in Benue State but soon after that, the military came in and as a result of that we left the country. So since 1980, we have not been in this country. That made us go international. So, its only when the civilian government of Obasanjo came in; even it took us some time again to watch whether the democracy is for real. So it’s really in the last two years that Colechurch came back into this country and even at that, I wouldn’t say we are fully here, because we are still exploring the position here. The truth is that, in coming to this country, I feel that the country has not explored its potentials. I feel that the country should have moved much further than we all dreamt at independence. One felt that there are lot of things that should be done. At the end of the day, the foreign investment is not coming with the speed we expected even though the government is trying all it can and should be congratulated for all the efforts it is making in that direction. We must know in reality that the foreign investors are all heading towards China and you will be surprised the amount of foreign investment going to the US. All these places are attracting foreign investment so that compared to many of them, the African countries don’t have much chance to really get foreign investment to make a lot of difference to the economic development.

So, one of the reasons we come to Nigeria is to see what to do because we are in project development and promotion and management, to assist the country to grow in the area of industrial development. My company is also very active in project management and development in the oil and gas sector and also in the area of power because I started as a power man and of course, in industry. What we are doing is divided into two levels. We came in here and found that even the small, medium industrial sector in this country hardly had anything to write home about, which is a pity. So, we decided initially to set up what we call a bureau of small, medium industrial promotion. This is the first of its kind because we specialise on industrial promotion in the small, medium sector.

The trouble is that the small, medium industrial sector in the country is not very buoyant. We have a lot of unemployment in the country. Graduates pass out; four or five years, they haven’t got a job and it is only by developing the real sector, the productive sector that we can make any difference to this situation. The bureau is highly specialised. The trouble is that we are toying about with small, medium industrial activities. People think that running an industry is more or less the same thing as trading. It doesn’t involve anything. You buy a machine and install it and the next day, you want to make millions of naira but it’s not like that. So, this bureau is to attempt to assist entrepreneurs in this field. There is no reason whatsoever that goods come from other countries and are cheaper than our people are making it in the small, medium industry.

There’s no reason for that. People say it’s electricity and all the infrastructure the government hasn’t provided. To me, that is a whitewash situation. Afterall, if you are an undeveloped country, you are then not expected to have all the developed things -electricity that flows 365 days in a week, roads all tarred, telecommunications all fantastic. If you have all that, then, you are not undeveloped but most people want all those things before they can get into small, medium industry. That’s nonsense.

And this feeling persists that, it is government that is holding up industrial development. The reason is that people are lazy in the country. They are not ready to work. They are not ready to attempt to develop a technology base - indigenous technology I call it. People are not ready to do that. That is one of the reasons we have an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology on behalf of the Federal Government. There is a lot of research being carried out here for years and nothing to show for it on the field. So this MoU is for us to work with the ministry to start commercialising some of their findings. If we use a finding from them, immediately it uses things in terms of how to utilise the facilities here - the resources, the manpower and the rest of it. So that is what we mean by indigenous technology.

We are trying to promote this. If we are bringing any technology from outside, it doesn’t have to be the way people carry foreign technology and bring here without seeing whether it is relevant or not. And up till now, there is no technology and people simply order a machine from overseas. He doesn’t know what is inside it. He doesn’t know the position. He doesn’t know what cost, the thing will produce the good for. He installs it. The next day, he finds that what he is producing is more expensive than the one from outside, then he shouts and says it is the government that causes that. So that’s one arm of what we are doing in the bureau. The other one is on the bigger end of the scale - the large projects. [b][/b]
Our company has done a lot of projects worldwide. We have a number of major projects, mainly industrial, that we are planning. We have major projects we are planning to invest in this country and either sometimes alone or in conjuction with other foreign companies. I’m driven because I’m a Nigerian to do it. Then I can easily attract others who know us to follow us and come here and we have all sorts of associations with them. So, that’s one major thing we are trying to do.

Education
I stayed two years in University College, Ibadan (1951-53). At that time, there was no Engineering here. So every year, there was entrance for the whole country. When I took the entrance in 1951, I was the first in the country, so we got into Ibadan and they selected about 10 of us that were for science and they said the government will send us later to do Engineering. We spent two years for what they called Intermediate Science and after that, we then were sent overseas and I can say today, that I’m the first chartered Electrical Engineer in Nigeria. I went to Leeds University 1953-56 and got a degree. In 1956, I joined the then Central Electricity Generating Board in U.K. It was the organisation that undertook the generation, the transmission of electricity throughout the U.K at a time. It was a big monopolistic organisation. There I worked and became head of planning division at the headquarters. It was from there that I didn’t know people from this country were reading all the things and journals I was publishing overseas. People were very nationalistic then. One day, they called me at the headquarters where I was and said some directors of Electricity Corporation of Nigeria want to see me. So, I said what did they want? Eventually, they managed to get to me and said they wanted me to come back to Nigeria. I said I was not interested because I was quite comfortable. They finally got in touch with my mother who I hadn’t seen for 11 years and she started making hell for me. She said if she died, her death was on my neck. That is why I finally returned to Nigeria and took up the job of chief engineer.


Government’s effort in attracting foreign investment
Government has constraints. Government is not everything. At the end of the day, it is the private people. Government can only facilitate. I don’t like this idea of always saying government, government.
A lot of us are lazy. We don’t want to do the work. People with money hide them. They want to go into trade. They want to go into property. They want to go and get shares in the bank because they expect a quick turnover. So, what do you expect government to do? The government is going all over the world trying to get foreign investment but I told you the constraint they are facing because every country in this world now wants foreign investment. Have you seen the adverts they are making in England to get foreign investment? Have you seen the adverts Germans are making to attract foreign investment? Have you seen the amount of state governments in America trying to attract foreign investment? The Australians are looking for foreign investment. When all this is happening, why does somebody particularly want to come to Africa? We have to put it in context. The people here have to get up on their bootstraps and get working. That’s what we are trying to do. That is why I’m forcing my company to come and invest here, not because it is the most attractive. We are in 32 countries of the world. I’m dragging the board of my company by the neck to get here but there are lots of problems here that makes it difficult for the average foreign investor to come here. So we are now trying to work with the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission to assist them because it is alright to call a foreign investor to come in here and you might get him interested. When he wants to go about it, he finds that there are no facilities to assist him. If he wants to do a quick feasibility study, he doesn’t find anybody with the competence to do it for him, except he goes to import somebody from overseas. After a time, he says to himself, I’m not bothering. So apart from the investment we are planning to make on our own either alone or in joint venture, we are establishing a project management organisation so that if these foreign investors come, we can say to them, what do you want? What help do you want? Is it study you want? Is it the statistics you want? Do you want us to help you in the construction of what you want and give you all the facilities? And we are speaking the same language with them. You are more likely to get them to say okay, let’s take this one. But at the moment, there is a lot of loss. The percentage of people who come in to say they want to invest actually is small, because they come and see all these in an unfamiliar situation. They go away. So we are now working with NIPC to come together to provide a kind of on-the-spot assistance to these people. That’s another thing we are doing apart from our own investment but you know our own resources are also limited so we cannot do everything.

Project cost
The total project cost of what we are looking at, is about just a little less than $1 billion. That does not mean that we will all contribute that ourselves. No! We are in a number of projects some of them $100m. Other bigger ones, we have to obviously attract other people to come to co-invest with us. That is the portfolio but you know, when you are dealing with large projects, sometimes, before you see anything on ground, it may take three years because there is a lot to put together. One problem we have for example in this country is to get the statistics, the data with which to work with. We have a pipe mill we are planning in the oil and gas. For the last two years, we’ve not been able to get any information about the consumption of pipes in the oil sector. We have not been able to do that. So, if you ask me why it has taken us long, that is part of it.

Frustrations
They are too many of them, but I don’t want to appear to be critical because the public service represents all of us in the population. If I want to see the head of a government department or a minister, it is not that the minister in point is unapproachable but those surrounding him will so make it impossible because, for one reason or the other, that’s our culture. If I want to see the managing director of a bank, which is in the private sector, you get there and it is exactly the same thing. So, it’s frustrating. Bureaucracy is not just government alone. It is also in the private sector. So let’s not keep saying it’s government, government. It’s the whole population. So, after a time, the average foreigner will say to himself what the hell am I doing here? Again, lack of data; lack of statistics and so on. It’s all part of it. At the end of the day, you say it’s not worth it because there are so many more attractive places to do business in the world. The world is an open place. It is a big place and people of this country don’t understand this. When you live here, you feel the world revolves around Nigeria. Nigeria is nothing. So for those of us who operate on the world, it’s nothing. I’m interested in Nigeria because I’m a Nigerian. Ordinarily, I don’t see why I should be interested in Nigeria. Until we see that we are in an inferior position or in a competitive position, we are low down, that’s when people here should wake up and be pro-active. There are many people I see in this country. They feel that foreigners are thronging here; foreigners are so desperate to come here. There is this attitude all along and unfortunately, this causes the very obstacle that makes it difficult to invest here.[b][/b]
More investment hinged on successful democratisation?
Let’s not be carried away with this issue of democratisation. I’m only looking at democratisation from the point of view that personal freedoms are not tampered with. Afterall, today, China is not what you call democracy because the West is selling this democracy as a recipe for economic development. That’s wrong. Let’s be clear. Democracy is being sold by the West as a` political thing and they make it more attractive; they make you feel that if you have democracy, you have economic development. It’s a lie because China is everything but democracy. Let’s draw a line between the two. On the other hand, I’m not necessarily saying that I’m happy. In China, the next day, you don’t know where you will be locked up. Okay? It’s a question of where you find the balance, because at the end of the day, you don’t eat democracy. You don’t eat freedom. If you sit down free, you can’t get water to drink.
So, it comes back to the point I’m making that people have to rise up, take their own destiny into their hand. Now, the foreigners going to China; all the foreign investments; is it because China is democratic? No, it’s not! They are going to China because of the economic opportunities there even though it’s not democratic. So let’s not necessarily say that if this place is not democratic, we’ll not invest. You can see that the whole thing is more numbled up than all that.

The economist and the engineer, who’s more active in you?
As I’m getting older, I’m leaning more towards economics because I have my people who are doing the technical and the engineering. We have a powerful organisation that does it. My job is to try and inspire; to try and put ideas across to see how they do it and also get cross flow from them because presently as I move on. I find that this issue of economic development; economic growth is a serious topic. If it’s done properly; if we get the right concept of it, that’s when this issue of technology will become recognised and given the central stage, so that’s why I’m dealing more now in that direction. But I couldn’t have done it without the experience of the years in running a big organisation like that from nothing.

Relaxation
Well, I do. If you don’t, then, you are not living. There are times I sit and my wife says to me, you are lazy because when I rest, I do rest and if I go to bed about 11 o clock in the night, sometimes, by 8 o clock, if you touch me, I will kick you because I’m still sleeping. I do have eight or nine hours or more of sleep. I play tennis (lawn). In fact, when I come to this country, I play tennis every two days and I’m playing not with the older people but with the young -those sharp guys so that, when I finish, I’m really exhausted but it’s good mentally and physically. Right now, I can run a 100 yards and come back with no feeling about it.

Family life
I am married to a white American. We have been married for 41 years and my son is presently in London, although his business is in the US. So he is in the US but temporary in London. He is in finance and record label company as well. My daughter is an assistant professor in Harvard School of Medicine.
She’s in Boston and I have two grandchildren. My youngest is 32, had a company but just decided to go and do an MBA.

Parting word to Nigerians
Nigerians need to work harder, Nigerians need to blame government less and know that the onus is on them to work hard to develop this country. We are very much behind. This country is one of the poorest 10 countries. Nigerians have to realise this and we are laying a very, very bleak future for our children, unless we do something about it

kikero:


They won't. Colonial government will only develop the areas that satisfy London, not Nigeria.



1.Botswana has 2 million people, and is one of the world's largest producers of diamonds, and platinum. Of course they have enough money. Nigeria produces 2-3million barrels of oil, same as the UAE...for 200million people. UAE has 11 million.

2.Namibia is the same, plus they also have a very low population. Infact if you want Nigeria to be like Botswana and Namibia, cut our populaiton by 195million people, and the remaining 5 million would live well.

3.South Africa is depreciating. Besides, the reason why SA looks good was during arphateid, the spending was disproprotionately on whites. That's why the country looks very good. Outside the areas of economic importance to whites, the rest of the country is as underdeveloped as Nigeria.

4.Zimbabwe...simple. Disproprotionate spending on whites. When they got independence, Mugabe tried to extend the spending to blacks, and when that did not work, seized white farms, destroying the basis of his country's economy...agric exports (which were falling anyway).

5.Prosperous countries are industrial countries. If the price of platinum and diamonds falls, Botswana and Namibia and even SA would be broke. Better for them to be industrial.

If Botswana was Nigeria with 2 million population, with a 1960 independence, Nigeria will still be a shitty country today, our leaders would still loot wateva money we got from those diamonds/platinum, same thing happens if Namibia was Nigeria, in fact we might be worse than we are right now.

Ur South Africa comments supports my argument, I totally agree with you there, it's d same whites that built Botswana and Namibia of which many of them r still there which robbed off the blacks there.
Remove all the Caucasian and Asians from USA and in less than 10 years it will be worse than Nigeria.
Not saying blacks aren't smart or can't develop a nation, but there is a black greed in 90% of us, we only care about ourselves and our immediate families.
If we had our independence in the 90's Nigeria would have been way more developed both north and south, competing with UAE. it won't solely rely on crude oil like we have been doing while there r many other resources we could tap into.

[quote author=SLAP44 post=90971413]10 points to note about this topic.

1. Onyemekukwe was a trained expert on electrical matters

2. He designed Nigerian electrical grid and was instrumental to running it till the war broke out

3. He must have fled Lagos like others

4. When he returned, his position has been given to one of those who won the war

5. The person who took his position might be a mediocre quota system figure head who is just occupying the position just because they won the war.

6. Electricity expansion and maintenance took a nose dive as the winner of the war took all money making positions and milked the nation dry.

7. Onyemekukwe got frustrated and left to form his own private company after the war, later got fed up as Nigeria continued to die in instalments, so he relocated abroad to allow Nigeria to die very well.

nothing can be more true brother. I watched in 2018 during the NTA@40, The ist DG after 40 years was still the best among them. And its getting worse

manuelreports:

I will prefer to die in Canada than to buried in Nigeria soil. That is because Canada is closer to heaven while Nigeria is closer to hell

Haha. Touché.