Electricity Tariffs And The Tyranny Of Energy -By Ike Willie-Nwobu

Nothing, except corruption, doubtfully, has exemplified Nigeria’s struggle to become the country erected on the magical dreamy landscapes of Nigeria’s founding fathers like its perennial and pathetic failure to power itself, a paralysis which has become a dagger to the hearts of many citizens and their businesses.

The recent decision of the federal government to increase electricity tariffs is one that has rankled a great deal of people  especially because the hike doesn’t match a higher standard of energy services.

Up nepa with which Nigerians cheer intermittent power supply has become at once a paradoxically cheerful crumb of triumph and comfort catalyzed in two words, and an elegy for the failure of energy in the country.

There is also a new termite in the bunker waiting to chew everything to pulp, and it is  the tendency of the national grid to collapse unimpeded sporadically, plunging vast swathes of the country into darkness.

The country is just trying to navigate the tunnels of a time when even time grows hot to a time when rain feels great on the skin island on the soil. This navigation has been mostly done in dampness at day, darkness, and searing heat at night and day. It is doubtful that a failure of energy has ever equated to an abysmal failure of welfare anywhere.

Nigerians have tried so hard to keep the lights on. Not the one from the distribution companies, for it is said that even they use generators, but light like hope that illumines the labyrinth of the heart. Now, the light is going off at the end of the tunnel, Nigerians are at the end of their tethers and all they see is darkness.

Another fact that is making it impossible for Nigerians to swallow the high tariffs

Pushed into their faces is that there is no improved energy services to match the rapacious appetite of the regulators to hike tariffs. Inadequate energy supply continues to confront citizens and visitors alike in their many lives as consumers, business owners and service providers. If   services are not commensurate to cost, the consumer is entitled to their disgruntlement.

Those who make, unmake and remake the policies that have kept Nigerians in increasingly darkness for decades now must find the humility to admit that their hubris is hurting not just a critical sector, but an entire country. Since cutting the tree from the top isn’t working, can those who wield the axe be humble enough to start from the bottom? Can they unbundle the sector and start again?

The best resolution for desperate illness is not usually a cure. It is sometimes death only through which life can begin again, unbundled from previous concerns, and unburdened by past niggles. Since various cures have been tried — and failed—for the power sector, it may be time to take a different road. The present road surely forks somewhere.

Nigeria wanted steady power supply to be its metaphor for returning to democracy after eight years of darkness under military rule. President Olusegun Obasanjo sunk about sixteen billion dollars into the project. But all it has produced until date are long shadows and even longer groans, a landscape populated by non-existent power infrastructure and stifling heat. As usual, the funds have since flown away, finding eternal disappearance in the forests of Nigeria’s corruption. The ensuing darkness has ensured that Nigerians cannot see the wood for the trees.

In the face of this regime of extortion, this era of extortionate energy pricing, this propensity to take an arm and a leg for light, and eons of sighs and sneers, what’s this darkness? What is this death of light, this dearth of power?

Nigerians are uncomplicated consumers who are always willing to pay for what they consume, their tastes are often measured and prudent. In fact, they usually pay even for what they do not consume, that is until they can no longer pay. Nigerians pay bills even when treated unfairly.

A case in point is the situation of electricity consumers who are yet to obtain their prepaid meters. Many of them have paid and processed their meters, but are yet to receive them. While what should be a seamless process suffers unnecessary delay, they are billed extortionately and indiscriminately every month. Paired with the costs of other goods and services now, what is visible is a noose overflowing with necks.

It exhausts scandal that Nigeria remains In literal darkness many years after independence. What is now scandalous is the half-hearted attempts to treat a grave illness with painkillers. If it has not worked, and is not showing any sign that it will work, why do Nigeria’s power-brokers persist with this folly?

If Nigeria must finally stumble out of this dungeon, then there must be light. As long as it only darkness, nothing will change. To ask people to pay more for deepening darkness is depredation in daylight. The tariffs are like  guns and sheriffs are thieves.

Ike Willie-Nwobu,

Ikewilly9@gmail.com