FACTS AND FIGURES TO GINGER US TO TAKE BACK NIGERIA: 2

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By Jaye Gaskia

According to Authorities responsible for the Power sector:
• The country now generates between 4,100 and 4,200 MWs of electricity on a daily basis!
• There will also be available by the end of Dec 2012 additional 2,500 MWs of electricity from the Independent Power Projects (IPPs); but its availability to the National Grid is dependent on stable Gas supply!
• The country did not lose 1,000 MWs of the 4,300MWs during Sept; what happened is some system failure which disrupted generation etc.
What has not been spoken about at all is the state of the national distribution and transmission infrastructure and capacity. What is our current transmission capacity?

Why do we always experience system failures and collapses each time we manage to improve power generation capacity above a certain threshold?
What is the status and comparative nature of investment in generation, as well as, distribution infrastructure and capacities?

To ensure adequate and stable power supply in order to drastically mitigate the harsh operating environment in the economy requires a holistic and integrated approach; not a piecemeal bits-and-pieces approach!

This nation has spent/invested close to $30bn on power sector reform since 1999, and what we have achieved is to take power generation capacity from hovering roughly between 2,500MWs & 3,000Mws in 1999 to hovering between 3,900Mws & 4,300MWs in 2012?

This is one more indicator of a congenitally wasteful, treasury looting, commonwealth pilfering; but also inept and incompetent ruling class!
With all these money in one sector alone, no wonder over the same period the share of the richest 10% of our national wealth (which they acquired by stealing) has risen to 41%; while the share of national wealth of the poorest 20% of our population has declined to just 4%!

Little wonder poverty rate has also increased over the same period from 54% to 69% (that is more than 110 million Nigerians – more than the total population of the rest of West Africa living in poverty in Nigeria alone!).

This is why it is up to us to reach the conclusion that no combination of fractions or segments of this thieving and pillaging ruling class can be looked up to for our national salvation and collective social emancipation and transformation.

That is why Our Destiny is very SQUARELY in our own Hands! The urgent historical imperative from these is that we must organise ourselves politically; mobilise massively and across the nation; build on the gains of the January Uprising; establish Our Own Alternative Political Platform; And TAKE BACK NIGERIA!

Feel free to comment, give me your opinions and discuss the mentioned issue as extensively as you wish