The speaker’s unkept promise

At the inception of the lockdown to prevent us from running into coronavirus on the streets, offices and markets in the shape of our fellow men and women, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker, House of Representatives, chanced on a populist political promise. He would introduce a resolution in the house compelling the light people to give us free light for two months. Awesome.

Although I did not hear the hand clapping by the harried of the nation, I was sure they must have been generous with their applause. Free electricity for two months on the say-so of the house? Few things could have pleased the people more and marked the speaker down for a no-contest re-election in 2223.

I am not sure the honourable speaker got around to giving effect to his populist promise before the house locked its doors against its members, each of whom, in the maths of coronavirus, is a potential carrier and spreader of the virus. He was thus rudely interrupted by the urgent need to shut the chamber against a possible COVID-19 invasion. I am sure he was motivated by kindly considerations for the people, also known as the common people. But I do not know why my mind keeps drifting to the speaker’s statement. I keep wondering: was it a mere political sound bite to make us acknowledge him as the man of the people or did he seriously mean it as something doable?

My initial response was that the speaker must have recently returned from a country where children are not given to shouting NEPA! each time the lights go out or come on and thought that our dear, dear country was in the same league with them. I thought he could not have been ignorant of the fact that no man or company or government gives what it does not have. We do not have electricity. Even if the house passed the resolution, we would still not have electricity, free or paid for. It’s that bad. I am sure you are not hearing it from me.

Energy poses no serious problems for other nations. We are an exception. We have gone through myriads of policies to become a modern nation, energy wise. But each time we thought we had something solid to hold on to, it turned out to be straw floating in the gutter. After years of mathematical calculations that saw ECN change its name to NEPA, the unbundling of NEPA into smaller companies to independently generate, transmit and distribute electricity, we still live with the charming paradox of being an African country with the highest number of power plants and yet we are unable to generate our energy needs from these facilities. South Africa generates 44,000 megawatts; we generate a kingly 4,000 megawatts. Still, we crow.

I think Gbajabiamila was wise to pull back from his promise otherwise two things would have instantly happened to him. The light people would have ignored the resolution and made him look ignorant about the place of resolutions in our legislative houses.  Even if he did not hear it, the snickering over his populist action would have been loud enough to echo in the house chambers. And if someone were to list politicians whose promises have the hollow ring of being unrealistic, he would have been unhappy to find his name on the list.

Well, I wish to report to the honourable speaker that I have been home for a little more than five weeks now and if I have any problems with the lockdown, it is this: the electricity companies take my money and deny me their services. We do not have light for days, not hours. I wonder if it could have been any worse we were to make any claims on free electricity. The light people have forced me and my family to either convert our feeding money into fuel for our generators or else exist in darkness with all the horrendous implications, such as the food in the fridge giving in to heat and thus turning itself into poison. This could be as bad as COVID-19. You do not need me to tell you that food poisoning kills too.

Can Gbajabiamila do anything about this and turn his intended populist promise into something much more positive than a sound bite? A tree does not make a forest but it takes one man, only one man, to make a difference in a somnolent nation. The coronavirus pandemic is a time for unusual actions and decisions. The executive agonises over what to do with the three companies that succeeded NEPA. This country took the option of unbundling NEPA because it believed that three companies would be better than one burdened with power generation, transmission and distribution. If two heads are better than one, then three companies should be much better than one. Simple logic. Except that the logic of energy defies simple logic in our country.

The federal government is bellyaching over the fact that the logic of three companies being better than a monolithic one has defied logic. But it can only cry to itself. I do not think it is that helpless. The dividends the government and the people expected from burying NEPA in the rubbish heap of its own problems, have turned into a mirage. The government, from newspaper reports, toyed with sacking the companies and inviting some other more competent companies a few months ago. But there is only some motion but not movement on that front. We know that the buyers are men of timber and calibre. They more or less control the national economy. You do not touch such people without thinking more than twice.

The failure of the companies to deliver is not entirely of their own making. From what I hear, the 4,000 megawatts currently generated cannot even be evacuated, let alone be distributed. You know why. The transmission lines are archaic and dilapidated. A heavier load would make the entire system collapse. Still, managing a dilapidated system in order to keep up appearances amounts to public deceit. The transition company complains of losing good money because it must pay for what is generated, even if it is not evacuated. The transmission line is the responsibility of the federal government. Where the government is the problem but does not seem to realise it, mere motion is accepted as movement.

The investors who rushed into the purchase of these companies believed they would be cash cows only to find that they are probably closer to cash goats than cash cows. I hear they are reluctant to invest their own money in the companies. I suppose it would uncharitable to blame them. They expected cash cows and were handed cash goats. Not fair, if you ask me.

Our energy problem is a huge national shame. That statement bears repeating, if only to underline the fact that shame does not carry the same weight here as it does elsewhere. It has defeated every federal administration in the country.  Do we accept it as the unacceptable fate of our nation and continue to moan over it?

It is a question Gbajabiamila should spend some idle hours thinking about in search of an answer that could move the nation from this negative point to a positive point in its harrowing energy challenge. If he does and succeeds, maybe we can all celebrate it with two months of free electricity. A good starting point would be for the speaker and the house to get the federal government to hands off everything energy and let the energy companies be given the freedom to run as commercial enterprises. The fiction about consumer protection has taken us nowhere but down the overgrown path of lack, deprivation and, of course, corruption.