Fashola: Doing Better as Minister of Power

At his inaugural meeting with the members of staff of the Ministry of Power, the new Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, reportedly inquired if the problems with the Nigerian power sector were man-made or systemic.

For the former governor of Lagos State, whom Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka fondly described as a “mechanic” for his methodical approach to and efficiency in solving problems, this inquiry is not surprising. It is a mark of a germane type of curiosity, which seeks understanding as a pathway to improvement. It also hints at such a discretion that would rather not rush in where angels should fear to walk, seeing that most of his predecessors have had their reputations scarred while treading the same tempting but treacherous grounds into which he was about to step with that meeting. Need I name such predecessors or relive their experiences to drive home the wisdom of what I perceive as Fashola’s cautious and open-minded approach to his new office and its grave responsibilities?

And to answer his question, relying on my experience working as a maintenance crewman in the then National Electric Power Authority and thereafter in various capacities in the power sector: The problems with the Nigerian power sector are both man-made and systemic. They are man-made because they are largely created by humans and systemic because those who create them are part of systems inclined to perversity. (In another sense, they are systemic because they arise from a system bogged down by technical and other inadequacies, in which case they can be addressed by eliminating such inadequacies.)

Unfortunately, the stories to justify this answer, drawn from my personal experiences while working in NEPA, are too long to be accommodated by this piece. But suffice it to say that they show how some of the problems in the power sector are created – and persist – because those who create them from within and outside the sector profit from them, and seem determined to continue to do so indefinitely. Such people, and the negative forces behind them, are no respecter of persons, virtue or vice. Their only interest is their survival and the sustenance of the profits they derive by creating such problems.

Therefore, solving such problems would entail getting rid of such illicit profit bases. But there is no easy way to achieve this even for a change agent with the legendary powers of a Hercules, to which I doubt that Fashola would lay claim. For it would threaten many entrenched interests determined to ensure their survival, besides requiring a sweeping change in our citizens’ attitude to protecting our nation’s interest. But the problems are surmountable if the right things are done of which further details cannot also be accommodated by this piece due to their length.

However, I shall proceed below with specific instances of what Fashola may do to improve his chances of succeeding as the Minister of Power.

First, he should harmonise the activities of the various agencies in the power sector to work in synergy towards improving the power situation in our country. In some cases, the agencies and their heads have tended to operate as rivals rather than partners in progress, creating friction that could undermine the common goal of improving power supply in our country. By such harmonisation, he would be putting in a more efficient harness the human and managerial resources in the sector, which is the fulcrum of all other resources.

It is desirable to continue to develop the power sector multi-dimensionally, through projects in the areas of solar, biomass and wind power. But to succeed as the Minister of Power, Fashola may need to guard against spreading government’s developmental efforts in the sector too broadly, considering the attendant risk of making an overall low impact in terms of power availability. By this, I mean that he should focus on what is most easily achievable to improve power generation, while striving to match improved generation with improved transmission and distribution capacities by commensurate infrastructural development across the entire value chain of the power system.

For instance, some of the plants built under the National Integrated Power Project have been inaugurated but are not generating at full capacity. Altogether, the plants have a generating capacity of 4,775 megawatts, which is slightly higher than the quantum of power currently being generated in our country. So, we can practically double the amount of power we currently generate to about 9,000 megawatts by ensuring that the NIPP plants operate at full capacity and aligning that performance with our transmission and distribution capacities. With the overall completion stages of the 10 NIPP plants located nationwide having exceeded 80 per cent, they are what a former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, described as “low-hanging fruits”.

Therefore, as his second step to success as the Minister of Power, Fashola should focus on plucking these fruits and securing them in the nation’s power generation basket while propping up the transmission and distribution capacities of the power sector to support the resultant dramatic increase in power availability. Slightly extended, this implies consolidating our current capacity to generate power from hydro and gas-powered stations, which already has the most developed infrastructure and potential for immediate impact in our country. At a time when funds are generally believed to be scarce, too much emphasis cannot be placed on the need for such concentration of effort.

Thirdly, he should champion an improvement of regulation in the power sector, and see to the smoothening of any creases in the regulatory agencies’ understanding and performance of their responsibilities. This is important because regulation is critical to the success of the power sector post-privatisation, and each of the regulatory agencies, such as the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, and the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency, have important roles to play in the sector.

For instance, while NERC acts as an omnibus policeman of compliance with extant rules of engagement in the sector, especially in terms of service delivery and tariff-related issues, the other regulatory agencies have more specialised roles that can be executed side by side with NERC’s, if the focus is the common good or the nation’s interest. The BPE, for instance, undertakes the post-privatisation monitoring of the power companies in line with agreements they signed with the Nigerian government, while NEMSA monitors the quality of equipment in use or for deployment in the sector – like meters, transformers, etc. – to ensure that they meet the necessary standards. So, the three types of regulation can be described as general (for NERC), specific (for BPE) and technical (NEMSA), and can co-exist with the executing agencies for ease of implementation and improved efficiency. With this arrangement, the theory of division of labour and its advantages come to mind.

Clearly, there are many more things Fashola can do to succeed as the Minister of Power, but I cannot include them here owing to space constraints. But even those I have highlighted here can take a whole tenure of four years or longer to achieve, considering how slow progress can be in the power sector even with relentless hard work such as he is noted for.