₦airaland Forum

For those Nigerians who have not abandoned
the truth about this failed project called the
Transformation Agenda, below is the
catalogue of failed promises made by the
Jonathan administration, on power
generation, since 2011 till date. Power we
know moves economies.
“F.G plans electricity load study”, PUNCH,
August 11, 2011, p. 24. The story reported
the former Minister of Power, Professor
Barth Nnaji to have said that “the
government had the capacity to generate
6,000 megawatts, but was currently
generating 3000MW. “Also the Federal
Government has said it is determined to
improve power supply by taking the
increasing power generation from the
current 3000MW to 7200MW by December
this year [2011].
In the same report by PUNCH, the
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum
Resources, Mr Sheik Goni, …”added that
eager to deal with the issue, the government
had set a target of increasing power
generation to 40,000MW by the year
2020.” Goni was not through with promises
on behalf of the government. He also said:
“plans have been put in place to raise this
capacity to 7220MW by the end of 2011 and
14,018MW by the last quarter of 2013”.
That was a year and one month ago.“Power
Ministry Targets 5,000MW by December”,
THISDAY, August 14, 2011, p. 1.
This was reported as a telephone
conversation with Professor Bart Nnaji, the
same Minister who only three days before
promised 6000MW while Goni vowed it would
be 7200MW by the same December. Were the
two working for the same government?
“Jonathan: Uninterrupted power supply
possible before 2015”. NATION, August 17,
2011 p. 11. According to the paper, “He
[Jonathan] said yesterday that his
administration remains committed to the
attainment of uninterrupted power supply in
the country before the end of his tenure in
2015”.
That tenure expires on May 29, 2015; five
months from now.“Nigeria needs $100bn
investment in power sector”, DAILY TRUST,
p. 25.
Here again, it was Professor Nnaji, who
disclosed this in a paper titled” “Nigeria: A
Miracle Waiting To Happen”. According to him,
“Nigeria needs $100 billion investment to
achieve 40,000MW in the year 2020. That
is six years from now.This was followed by
“Show the light, and the people will find the
way”, by Bart Nnaji. NATION, December 1,
2011, p. 22.
According to him, “The Road Map [launched by
Jonathan] provides ways and means to make
Nigeria achieve 40,000MW within one
decade, so that our beloved nation could
become one of the world’s 20 largest
economies by 2020”. On December 31, 2011,
neither the 7000MW nor the 5000MW
milestone had been reached. Having failed
woefully to deliver on the promises made for
2011, Jonathan and his team marched into
2012 to make more promises and to shift
one goal post.“Nnaji’s curious games with
power sector reforms”, was the title of a
PUNCH Editorial, dated March 5, 2012, p. 18.
In the editorial, the paper reminded readers
that the Road Map had assured Nigerians of
the “targeted increase in actual generation
capacity to 7000MW by December 2011.
PUNCH however confirmed that even in
March 2012, “all the entire nation has today
(as generation capacity) is 4200MW”. Trust
Professor Nnaji, the perfect Minister for a
nation of scatter-brains, on June 12, 2012,
in a report by PUNCH, there was a report
titled, “Electricity generation to hit
5,500MW this year’. He announced the
figure at a lecture at the Institute for
Security Studies in Abuja.
Sounding triumphant instead of repentant,
he told his audience that “there will be a
remarkable improvement in power supply
across the nation”. Deliberately, he made no
mention of the promise of 7000MW by
December 2011. Two months after Nnaji
spoke, we read: “Power supply peaks at
4237MW” in NATION, August 8, 2012.
According to the report, “the Minister broke
the cheery news to the Ministry’s directors
yesterday”.
No doubt he called the President first. A
greater clown show could not have been
imagined. A Minister promises 7000MW the
previous December; and 5,500MW for 2012,
he delivers 4237MW in August and receives a
pat on the back. What then is our definition
for failure?September 14, 2012 brought
another “cheery” bit of news in the form of
a report by PUNCH.
“Five power plants shut over technical
hitches”, said the paper on page 21. Power
supply dropped to 3938MW. October 11,
2012, President Jonathan in his 2013
Budget Speech announced as follows: “The
Power Sector Reform [to reach 14000MW
by December 2013] is on course. Of recent,
our efforts have paid off..”. We were, then,
only fourteen months from the promised
14,000MW and we could not hold power
supply steady at 4000MW and yet the
President of Nigeria said the programme “is
on course”. Will somebody define flight from
reality please?
November 3, 2012 brought another promise
from the “Promise Mill”. It came from the
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power –
“Fed Govt Targets 5000mega watts by
December” in the NATION, page 5. Notice
another 500MW had been peeled off from
what Nnaji announced in June and 2000MW
from what was promised in 2011. Some will
call that uncontrolled regression. But, more
important, these people don’t know or care
that we remember what they told us last
week, month or year. They would like us to
suffer from collective amnesia – simply
because they do.
Then something curious occurred. The
Guardian, on December 9, 2012, in a story
which started on the front page, and
continued to page two, wrote about General
Electric, GE, the US-based global giant,
signing a Memorandum of Understanding,
MOU, to provide 10,000MW of incremental
capacity – without fixing a date for the
delivery.
But, one Mr Lazarus Angbazo, President/CEO
of GE Nigeria, suddenly shifted the goal post
for the delivery of the 40,000MW which
President Jonathan had promised to achieve
within a decade — a decade is ten years for
those who might not know. In the Guardian
report, “The GE President recalled that the
power need of the country in the next 10 to
20 years, as articulated by the government
is 40,000MW”. That is a lie. The Road Map
said a decade, ten years – not ten to twenty
years. On December 27, 2012, the NATION’s
report, on page 11, was titled: “Nigeria’s
power generation to exceed 7,000MW next
year [2013]. Thus, 2012 ended on the same
note as 2011 – broken promises. Neither the
5500MW nor 5000MW was delivered. We
started 2013 with a promise of 7000MW by
December of that year.
Forgive me for not taking you through the
lengthy process of proving, once again, that
2013 followed the same pattern as those of
2011 and 2012 – promises were made to be
broken. Still, it is necessary to substantiate
the charge. For some inexplicable reason,
these people cannot stop making promises
which they cannot or would not be able to
fulfill. The promises came fast and bigger in
2014. This time, it was the Minister of
State for Power, Mrs Zainab Kuchi who got
the ball rolling.
In a PUNCH, January 10, 2013 report, titled:
“FG Targets 10,000MW of electricity by
December”, she first of all admitted that the
“peak quantity generated in December 2012
was 4,517MW”. The report also reminded us
that Obasanjo/Imoke promised Nigerians
10,000MW by 2007 – and failed miserably.
Indeed, Obasanjo established the
dishonourable practice of promising the
people, squandering their funds and at the
end, have nothing to show. The figures which
Mrs Kuchi used to support her promise were
at best inadvertently misleading or at best
deliberately fraudulent.
Yet she was talking to a committee of
Nigerians presumed to have brains. She was
not alone in foisting falsehood on the nation
as promise. The Minister of State for
Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama, in another report
on January 29, 2013, announced that “FG
targets 1,000MW from 10 new plants”. It
was not to be. History will record that 2013
ended with the nation still being supplied less
than 5000MW of power. So what happened
in 2014? Professor Nebo, who had replaced
Professor Nnaji, quickly got into the promise
game. In July 2014, he promised Nigerians
6000MW of power supply by December
2014. In November he reduced the figure to
the usual 5000MW.
In the end, on December 28, 2014, the
NATION, on page 5, informed us that “Power
supply rises to 3,666.76MW”. And what was
Professor Nebo’s response to another failed
promise? Of course, you know. He had just
announced another 7,000MW target for
next year. Yet, between Obasanjo, Yar’Adua
and Jonathan, Nigeria had spent $156 billion;
more than Britain spent to add 30,000MW.
Where did the money go? Don’t most
Nigerians care anymore?
Somebody somewhere once defined insanity
as “doing the same thing over again and
expecting a different result”. Is it not
possible to also define insanity as employing
the same set of people for sixteen years,
failing each and every year and still wanting
to continue with them? How on earth will
Nigeria ever be great if we cannot add just
4000MW, to our power supply in sixteen
years? In all these, somebody must have
lost their marbles. The question is: who?

Credit; Vanguard

And some NLders will comment in favour of GEJ!

Sickening to say the least...

motherlode:
And some NLders will comment in favour of GEJ!