As power supply continues to dip with Nigerians made to pay through their noses, protests have intensified across the nation with manufacturers calling for more funding in fueling and maintaining power plants. See: Mass protests hit Suleja Chairman, Economic Policy Committee, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, Reginald Ike Odiah made this known in Ikeja, Lagos, during the Annual General Meeting of MAN, where he enumerated the pains the manufacturing sector has endured in Nigeria. He said a whopping sum of N500bn is expended yearly for fuelling, running and maintaining their power plants, along with other additional costs to cover infrastructural deficiencies, a situation far from ideal for business to thrive. The Coordinator, Nigerian-German Energy Partnership, Jeremy Gaines, indicated that Nigeria loses about 50% of its generation, transmission and distribution due to ageing infrastructure. See: How power supply and job creation dipped – NBS Last year, Dunlop Nigeria Plc., a tyre manufacturing company in Nigeria, shut down its plants, laid off hundreds of its staff and went to Ghana. Presently Patterson Zochonis, PZ, is planning to move to Ghana, as Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Unilever and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA, have sacked sizeable number of their workers over reported high cost of production, decaying infrastructure as well as the ravaging global economic recession. There are rumors that Guinness Plc is already set to move its business to Ghana, while other companies are almost on the brink of folding up completely. Odiah attributed the high rate of inflation in the country to the huge cost of providing alternative electricity. This according to him is responsible to other consequences of high production cost which include low Gross Domestic Product, GDP, lack of interest in investing in Nigeria by both local and foreign investors, closure of factories and migration of surviving ones to greener pastures, among others. See: Why more investors are snubbing Nigeria Nigeria’s real sector contribution to GDP currently stands at 9.5%, while those of U.S and China stand at 35.6%and 49.5%, respectively. The Naira on the other hand has further crashed against the Dollar from N247 last Thursday to N251 on Saturday at the parallel market. This is coming barely one week after the Central Bank of Nigeria cut foreign exchange supply to Bureau De Change operators. Gross foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $29.92bn as at November 30, from $30bn the previous month. Unfortunately, President Muhammadu Buhari who was voted massively on the change mantra is yet to have a grip on the economy. Most disheartening is that he has busied himself touring major countries of the world while the nation boils with Insecurity, Unemployment, Infrastructural decay, inflation, poverty among several others.