Incremental hardships heaped on the people by incompetent political administrations create a fertile ground for social rebellion. Any serving Minster who cannot connect the Boko Haram terrorism in the north-eastern part of Nigeria and the daredevil kidnapping and armed robbery going on in the other parts of the country to abject poverty and failure of past and present regimes to alleviate the plight of the people by ameliorating their harsh living conditions needs his mind examined. With the social tension and misery generated by poor service delivery coupled with dwindling income, poor purchasing power and mass unemployment which rebounds on the few working people, is this the time for public officers of the rank of federal ministers to be making inflammatory remarks about public outcry against high electricity tariffs; especially for a utility service riddled with fraud, extortion, corruption and inefficiency?
The statement credited to the Power Minister, Professor Chinedu Nebo, that if "electricity tariffs were to be increased further, Nigeria's electricity tariff still ranks lowest among African countries", is not only offensive but wrapped up in a gab of misleading statistics. Assuming for the sake of argument that Nigeria's electricity tariff is lowest when compared to those of other African countries, it is insensitively and, indeed, rudely presented to the Nigerian publics. Could he have made the same statement, a couple of years ago, when he was a lecturer in the university relying solely on his income as professor and paying more than N40,000 monthly electricity bill not calculated on prepayment meter?
Now, to confront the brutal facts about Nebo's claim that Nigeria's electricity tariff ranks lowest among African countries. Where did he get his data from? A recent survey published in February this year regarding the high cost of electricity generation in Africa ranks South Africa and Zambia as not only having the lowest electricity tariff in Africa, but also the lowest in the world; whilst stating the fact that other developing regions in the world such as South and East Asia have much lower electricity tariff structure than South Africa and Namibia. Nowhere in the report is Nigeria portrayed as ranking lowest in electricity tariff in Africa. Assuming that Nebo has a credible source to which I am not accessible since I am not omniscient, did that source also claim that electricity supply in those other African countries ranking higher than Nigeria in electricity tariff is as erratic, epileptic, and hardly available as in Nigeria?
Need anyone be told that regular, uninterrupted and efficient electricity supply with high tariff is a lot better than what we have in Nigeria? What Nigerians are complaining about is not just high electricity tariff, but that the service is not rendered at all in most cases, and where electricity is supplied at all, it is so inefficient that nothing is achieved with it. In addition to this anomaly, metering and billing is wretched, extortionate, fraudulent, and corrupt. People are made to pay, with the active connivance of the Power Ministry, for electricity not consumed by end users. Is that the situation in the other African countries that Nigeria is being compared to by Nebo? Are those other African countries as richly endowed as Nigeria; and do they have a record of mind blowing daily theft of public fund and resources by those who happen to be in control?
Is Nebo not aware that, for the most part, the anger of Nigerians against the state is that people are being made to suffer high cost of everything and untold hardship because of the corruption and inefficiency of government? Is Professor Nebo coming from outer space? If you supply efficient electricity that people can use to generate economic activities and they are accurately billed through prepayment metering, do you think that the public outcry against high tariff of electricity would be as orchestrated as it is today?
Public officers should not always assume the status of demigods as soon as they find themselves in the corridor of power. They should rather use their elevated positions to improve the living conditions of the people, not make it worse. Nebo should use the Power Ministry that he runs to provide for accurate metering of electricity consumption in the country; and also get the private investors to take over their newly acquired generation and distribution companies to enable them contribute their quota to improved electricity service to the nation. He should advise government to explore cheaper and alternative sources of power generation and transmission and create the enabling legal framework to make it easier for more and more private investors to come into the electricity service industry to make electricity accessible to all those who need it.
The government should desist from buying the idiotic argument that until electricity tariff is raised to high heavens, investors would not be attracted to the industry. People need electricity to do many things. When it is available and supplied efficiently to people discharge their industrial and technological obligations, investors in the power sector would reap a huge return on investment. That is the kind of public relations that the Power Ministry should be doing to get more and more investors to come into the electricity service sector to improve the condition of things; not a casuistic justification for imposing more hardship on the people.
In fairness to the Power Minister, however, it is evident that many officers of the Federal Republic are, today, working under very difficult conditions; with a host of them being sent packing largely on account of the anxiety for 2015. My take is that even if a man is given the task of a slave to perform, he should, at least, apply the work ethics of a free born. Let public officers employ tact, diplomatese and euphemisms in delivering a "death sentence" on their fellow citizens.
Source: Reckless utterances on high electricity tariff (http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/reckless-utterances-on-high-electricity-tariff/)