http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6653067.stm?ls
China has successfully launched a communications satellite for Nigeria.

Nigeria's satellite is now in space, but on the ground in Nigeria there is now a NATIONWIDE ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT that is inching the country inexorably down and back into the stone age.

Nigeria's generator importers and peddlers must be feeling mighty proud of their successful sabotage regime of the nation's electricity grid,  guiding the country gently toward absolute darkness.

jakumo

I thought we dealt with these so called saboteurs. Your govt in unable to provide constant electricity and you are blaming generator sellers and importers. Be realistic

Agreed ADC.  The ability of generator selling syndicates to continue wreaking havoc in Nigeria is an index of absolute failure for EVERY SINGLE government that has been in power over the decades that this problem has festered.

Yes sir indeed, the electricity supply saboteurs are alive and well with their fingers firmly clamped on Nigeria's economic jugular, and there is sadly no end in sight, regardless of who is to blame.

Jakumo u r an Educated Illiterate,

Blamin the incessant power failure on Generators Sellers n producers makes u the highest mumu on this planet earth,


Are u blind or wat?

The President will not cook breakfast for Nigerians if that is what you mean, because that is simply not sustainable. The President can only creat an enabling environment for bussinesses to thrive so that Job creation will be an aftermath of that enabling environment.

The Satelite is a longterm plan to diversify the economy providing ICT to African Subregion. There is also a plan to build railways system and that is only possible with adequate communication systems. Building a modern economy is not just about subsidising fertilizers or giving people cash crops for free, while those are important to improve the micro-economics of our nation there is also the need for longterm plan.

There is a plan at the moment to sort out electricity immediately though this is coming a bit late but lets not waiste so much time criticising government rather than thinking of how to contribute our little bit to make our country great. Some of us wallow too much in cynicism.

@ The generator Guys

They have been selling Generators for 20 years they have ground intelligence they have their own army in The power Industry this guys have feed on this for years and they are happy you and I have to buy Generators they are not ready to back down the fight is on.

You have Parasitic Elites in the Government ( you can never Know their hearts so you have to make do with DUE PROCESS and there you have DUE DILLIGENCE) You have to know that OBJ tried but failed and he admitted but he has set the ball rolling.

His "failure" is a success compared to others. He thought by granting Licenses he will solve the problem but now he knows he has to invest massively so that others may follow suit.

To generate Electricity is not the problem it is to sell it and make money that matters to those that will want to Generate.

We need 104000Mw to be good to compete.

@Mckren

I think we have to open a thread where we have to call it "positive Nigerian Thinking Loud" this will help us talk about how to move the country forward.

to much Negativeness is what this guys have swallowed they will not want to let go unless they see people talking and arguing on positive points.

Are you suprised?
Check the antecedents Nigeria gave 5 million dollars loan to Sao Tome and Principe 2 years ago, Gave loan to Ghana as part of our brotherly gestures while amenities in Nigeria needed attention , gave electricity to Ghana while people are in Darkness in Nigeria.

The satellite would be powered by a generator abi?
talking of mislpaced priorities The fact on ground is that in all gov in the past 20 yearselectricity have never been this` bad. In fact 3 hours per day is the average.

Obj is now taking a safe position: If Yar'Adua fixes the NEPA problem he would claim it was as a result of the work he did before leaving , If Yar'Adua fails he would say i told you that NEPA is complex. Commisioning plants amounts to nothing. Going by the budget we approve very year, the projects we commission every day, the Developmental plans we did every other year then we shoud not be complaining of bad amenities. At least this same OBJ gave $900 million for the Turnaround maintainance of the refineries in 2000 and 7 years later we still import every drop of petrol we use.

OBJ is just a confused person, a corrupt man at its peak, and a hypocite unrivalled in history. Thank God May 29 is round the corner and we would say Good riddance to Bad rubbish.

@Dayokanu

I am 100% Nigerian and That is a Very Big Lie Naija has never Given GHANA ELECTRICITY.

From the cafe here we dont have light we are using Generator.

Yes he failed and he admitted it but he does not need to say he succeeded. The other guys that will come will praise his works.

Because we dont have Power The whole country will not shut down life will go on.

It was widely reported in Nigerian and Ghanian papers that OBj gave Ghana light I dont know where you got your info from .maybe you are the Minister of Power in Ghana that would give a more reliable info

The media have succeeded in creating an image that seldom exists anywhere. Thank God we have someone in Ghana who can say that there is no light at the point in time he was in the cyber cafe. People are talking of rural telephony and I wonder what that means. Hunger is killing people in the rural areas and someone is mentioning telephone; this kind of wonder amazes me.

this same people criticising will be the first to make use of the varied opportunity that the launch of the satellite will provide - this same people crying no food on the table - even in America there are people who cant afford money to buy food, yet, how advanced is America technologically?

People are too myopic in their reasoning - one sided and lopsided critics - reasoning like a fish.

Backslider:

@ The generator Guys

They have been selling Generators for 20 years they have ground intelligence they have their own army in The power Industry this guys have feed on this for years and they are happy you and I have to buy Generators they are not ready to back down the fight is on.

You have Parasitic Elites in the Government

Thank you for acknowledging the truth about Nigeria's collapsed electricity grid.   It is more convenient to blame a particular administration or president rather than accept that criminal networks can out-maneuver and outlast successive governments while bleeding the country to death.  The current blackout in Nigeria is the direct result of such an ongoing criminal enterprise, one that has fought the Obasanjo administration to a standstill and will try the same with the newly elected Yar Adua-led government.  

If any elected president can unmask and defeat Nigeria's power outage dragons, that person will go down as the greatest leader Nigeria has ever seen, irrespective of the critic's score-cards in all other indexes of performance.   The inexcusable absence of a working mains electricity grid will continue to undermine all other fields of endeavor into which the Nigerian government pours its petro dollar wealth, no matter how grandiose the white elephant projects sound at their inception.

In as much as i am into Information Technology and in the knowing of the advantages inherient in Nigeria having her own communication satelite, i am yet to be convince that this should be our priority now.
It is like putting the cart before the horse.

Where are the needed basic infrastructure to fully utilise the Communication Satelite.
We are still struggling to feed ourselves, our educational sector is nothing to write home about, we depend on genrator for power/enegry supply.

Hope this will not be another white elephant project that will be gulping billions of Naira annually to maintain without any known Return on Investment or Benefit to the nation.
Another  of our big MANism thinking of our ruler.

Why not encourage private individual to invest in this?

Larufa:

In as much as i am into Information Technology and in the knowing of the advantages inherient in Nigeria having her own communication satelite, i am yet to be convince that this should be our priority now.
It is like putting the cart before the horse.

Where are the needed basic infrastructure to fully utilise the Communication Satelite.
We are still struggling to feed ourselves, our educational sector is nothing to write home about, we depend on genrator for power/enegry supply.

Hope this will not be another white elephant project that will be gulping billions of Naira annually to maintain without any known Return on Investment or Benefit to the nation.
Another of our big MANism thinking of our ruler.

Why not encourage private individual to invest in this?

If you realy know the advantages of information technology, you will never make this posting.

dear jakumo and mclaren

if you either support the government or you fight the government,
many bizmen will make it, either i sell generator or procure transformer 4 power holders
biz is bizz.
the reform lacks human face because d rich people never wanted competition.
and today technology is d only thing dat can librate poor africans from d overbearing economic masters.
learn the malaysian lesson, read the japanesse papers and welcome the masters of tomorrow 'the chinesse'.

the world is a village square, thanks to advance te-ki-ina-lo-gi. as papa 70 would say.
a beg i agree with the lunching of china for nigeria and the dehumanizing situation in baba's time

hope yar'adua wont follow suit.

Another myopic discourse that never thinks about the future but only wat to eat now, omo ounje,

the problem with us in nigeria is that we are not getting our priorities right.we have this seeemingly irredeemable knack for aping,how could u launch a satellite when u dont have the necessary ,sustainable intellectual infrasructure on ground to maintain it or any plan for such?,i mean u are spending billions of naira sending a satellite into space when the best of ur universities lack most of the basic facilities present in modern nations.i am baflled that the government could even let the shadow of the thought of aping the west in the name of launching a satellite into space cross their supposedly wise minds when more than half of ur citizens are langushing in poverty.but then its nigeria,africa, nobody cares.

Blaming generator cartels for blackout is a lame excuse.

In every country and society we always have sabotage. Even in America we have both local and foreign saboteurs. Do you think Russia, China, Al Qaeda and other terrorist network would like to see America work? and vice versa America to would like those countries and organisations to go down. You know some American bizmen to can benefit from dealing with enemy nations and organisation for their own benefit. This applies to all countries in the world.

In all societies we have people who would work tirelessly for their own selfish gain to wreck the govt. Those are some of the things you budget for. It's like going into biz and saying you dont know there would be competition, sabotage and detractors. Do you think everybody in the world would like to see you suceed? Do you think MTN would want NITEL to be revived.
Do you think developed nations would want African countries to develop? You have to liberate yourself.

The nationwide blackout still boils down to visionless leadership.

Mckren can you tell me if ICT is a luxury or necessity? What is percentage of Nigerians that have access to computers let alone internet?  Most college students don't have access to internet and we are talking about long term. Can you tell me  if South Africa and Egypt with better ICT infrastructures started by sending  satellites in the space?  Do you know that NB PLC AMA Brewery was built with under $300 million? It’s the biggest brewery in Africa and its economic impact is massive. Why does Nigeria need two satelites when our airports do not have effective radar systems? By the way, Govt does not provide food, but we still import fertilizers. What are we saying about poverty in the West? Don’t  their poor people get food stamps, subsidized housing, heating and allowance? Let’s not confuse things 


As for those blaming generator seller and importers, I hope this finger pointing is not aimed at Idumota traders who are mostly Igbos. By the way big players in this industry are likes of John Holt PLC , Perkings and Yamaha.

Can we for once just quit this "half empty glass" mentality and at least learn to appreciate some things? Like it or not criticism is perhaps the cheapest gift in the world. This is the same crew that asks the eternal question "what are they doing with our money?" Y'all can at least start ur list with this one.
Left to these same peeps telecomms wldn't have been necessary when it was introduced (afterall they still hadn't put food on our tables). I stand to know whether or not we have been the better for it.

bolarge,
if someone call me omo ounje, then may be all d republicans are war mongers because they too are omo ounje, d earlier we better to learn that to you tent "o ye house of israel" then maybe we will understand that memers of all organizations play d survivalist role, not for there country but for their very stomach, go ask the bushes in america why they kept money for adolf hitler.

even the world largest organzation at the vatican city do not ask d Pope to feed all hungry catholics in asia and africa, why should obj or yaradua feed me when i can think of how to find food, school and woman for myself.

you better use at u have to liberate yourself from poverty if you are aiing or world bank, eu or un then wait till after they had paid their associates nd staff salaries.

most time i conclude that many of us went to school without understanding elementary economics and commrce.
even arisekola and dangote no go skool yet they compete with adenuga and gates

@adc

The answer to whether ICT is a necessity or luxury is bluring by day, once upon a time education was luxry but today it is not. And that is where ICT is heading to. It amazes me how you could in the same statement criticize Nigeria for not having adequate radar systems and yet criticize Nigeria for launching a satelite in space. May be we need to listen to ourselves sometimes.

Even the brewery you are talking about will benefit from Nigeria having adequate ICT. Do you think America became a first world nation by sharing bags of rice everyday??
No one says benefits is not alright but paying them without creating jobs or wealth is simply not sustainable. We have to build an industrialized economy to employ the army of unemployed first before we start paying benefits.

No one is confusing issues, if we wait for when people stop being hungry before we do anything we will simply not get anywhere.

As a nation development can not be uniform as such, the is the tendency for some sector of the economy to out pace the other in development will always be there.

The ICT over the past 4 years have prove to be one of such. We are part of the era of Nitel when land line and analog system of cell phone was the order of the day. presently, the GSM and 3G tech. have taken over. If we have waited for the land line to go to every nook and connay of the nation before the coming of the GSM technology then the world would have left Nigeria behind.

my point in all this, is that we cannot as a nation wait for the development of the power sector, health sector and above end to poverty before we send satellite to space.

what we as a nation should be worry about is how to bring the other sector (power,health, road) to meet up with others.

by the way  Mckren keep up the good work

Jakumo:


If any elected president can unmask and defeat Nigeria's power outage dragons, that person will go down as the greatest leader Nigeria has ever seen, irrespective of the critic's score-cards in all other indexes of performance.   The inexcusable absence of a working mains electricity grid will continue to undermine all other fields of endeavor into which the Nigerian government pours its petro dollar wealth, no matter how grandiose the white elephant projects sound at their inception.

THIS is the TRUTH. let us learn to set our priorities right. at least electricity affects EVERY nigerian in EVERY way.

blackchief:

my point in all this, is that we cannot as a nation wait for the development of the power sector, health sector and above end to poverty before we send satellite to space.

y not? these are the most BASIC human NECESSITIES

closetpervert:

If you realy know the advantages of information technology, you will never make this posting.

Don't  let the furore of the communication satelite launching becloud you thinking. What I'm saying is there are many needs of an average Nigerian  that the Government should be trying to address than the launch --  Food Security, Power Supply, Security of Lifes and Properties, Good Road Networks, Better Health Services e.t.c.
All these have direct impact on everybody in the country.

The business of the Communication Satelite should have been left in th hand private Companies, Govt. should just make the environment conducive for them.

Government does have any business been in business.

The government should address legal system and police and the private sector will take care of the rest, please.

My economics let me know that their is what is called scale of preference. If we all can sit down and draw nigerian scale of preference i do not think satalite will be anywhere near no 5. This satalite will be of no use to our broadband and communication system if we do not have electricity. We have GSM but sometime i stay one week without hearing from my parents in the vilage, not because they dont have GSM but cos their is no electricity to charge the phones. Believe it or not if we can achieve atleast 20 hours power supply in a day on daily bases and water the sky will be our limit in development. Satalite is Good but not nessary at the moment.

Having a satellite in space has its merits. No one is doubting the prestige it brings to a nation and the technological advantages that comes along with it. The crust of the matter is, is this what we should be embarking on at this moment in our history ?

In my opinion, the $311 million spent on this satellite could have been put to much better use. For instance, that money could have been used to build a power generating plant that 'll add atleast 400 MW to the national grid [the 414 MW Geregu plant cost 195 miilion euros (about $228 million) to build].

Bayelsa and Delta states have been saying they have no federal higher institution of learning in their states. The $311 miilion used for launching this satellite could have been split in half and used to build a federal university in these two states (at $155 million a piece). I think the Niger delta people would have been very appreciative of this.

We spent about $200 million on the abuja national stadium. How has it benefited us so far ? How often is the stadium used per month/year ? How much has it brought in in revenues ? That stadium lies dormant 90% of the time. If that $200 million was spent on buiding more schools, more teaching hospitals or on a power plant, wouldn't we be better off ?

In short, our priorities are just completely misplaced.

Seun,
I thought you would be first to defend the government, but you were more than objective. Thanks. Economic 101 scale of preference. Why send satelite when no Naija universities made it in Africa's top 40?

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705160728.html