Light Up Africa, Obama’s Patting Gift -By Shehu Sani

President Barack Obama’s signing into law The Electricity for Africa Act 2015 is commendable. Its a positive step to light up the continent and accelerate economic activities. The act will help people in rural and urban Africa to have access to electric power and improve on the quality of life and standard of living.

The Electricity for Africa Act 2015 when faithfully implemented will surely assist African Governments to provide power related social services in cities and remote areas of the continent.

Electricity generation and supply has been a big challenge to most African countries for decades. African governments have been overwhelmed. Outage affects lives, paralyses businesses and perpetuates underdevelopment.

Africa can neither develop itself nor reach an industrial status as long as it’s power sector remains in its epileptic state. We must move away from being a continent of imported generators. Its time to leap away from darkness to a brighter future where electricity is accessible and affordable to the masses of our people.

Nigeria, being the most populous African nation, must support and key into this initiative. With our 3000 megawatts of electricity generation and a population of about 175 Million, Obama’s Electricity for Africa Act is a welcome development. Most of our power infrastructure in Africa are colonial legacies generally laid to waste through the weariness of time and institutional neglect. Nigeria’s power sector has been partly grounded by fraud, perpetrated by previous governments made up of politicians, bureaucrats, local capitalists and western multinationals involved in power sector investment. The Electricity for Africa Act must be mindful of this. Over $20Billion dollars was wasted in our country within a period of 13 years and it only led us into a bottomless ditch of darkness.

The reported $7Billion commitment by the US government to support the scheme should be faithfully provided to give life and meaning to the act.

I call on African governments to act in unison through the African Union and take hold of this opportunity.

I call on the US government to ensure a faithful continuity of the programme even after the Obama administration, while shunning also political considerations or conditionalities in the implementation of the Act.

However, it is pertinent for Africans to know that despite all foreign economic interventions, our development and future still lies in our hands. African governments have a constitutional and moral responsibility to provide infrastructure and create an enabling environment for investment and development.

Shehu Sani, a Senator, is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debt, and Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.