Despite huge investments and repeated promises, electricity supply remains unstable in Nigeria. From low generation levels to persistent outages, from mounting debts to growing public frustrations with the Discos, the issues are serious and demand clearances. In this interview, a key voice in Nigeria’s power sector, Chief (Barr.) Sunday Oduntan, Managing Director/CEO of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) and official spokesman for all the Discos, bares his mind on the electricity problems on TVC’s Your View monitored in Abuja by our Special Correspondent, Charles Olewezi. Excerpts…

In recent time, to have constant electricity in Nigeria has become a mirage. Even those on band ‘A’ that are promised 20 hours of electricity are complaining of not getting up to 10 hours a day. We hear about investments. We hear about what the government is doing, what the Discos are doing, but nothing seems to change, and we are talking about our generation capacity. We’ve heard things like “Oh, you know, we have an estimated generation capacity of 14,000 megawatts,” but it seems we are generating just 6,000 megawatts, and we’re wondering what is happening? In fact, all these grammar are becoming confusing. Why is there no electricity in Nigeria?

Thank you very much. First, let me make Nigerians understand the fact that the Nigerian electricity crisis is not a mystery. What we have today, this crisis, this problem, is just a result of decades of policy inconsistency, lack of investments in the sector, and structural dysfunction. Of course, resolving this requires a lot of work.

The government needs to be deliberate. I would even say the President, as a person, needs to get directly involved. There must be a deliberate intention to even hurt feelings and step on toes in order to get it done and reverse the trend. We are not moving in the right direction. Things are not going well, and we have to be frank, sincere, and deliberate.

The issue of installed capacity is important. When you mention 14,000 installed capacity, you are talking about the machines and equipment, what they are capable of doing. Just because you have a brand new car in front of your house inside your village, a village without roads, and the car is brand new, that car is capable of running. But once you do not have enough fuel in the car, it can only take you a few limited places, and if there are no roads, you cannot even leave the same spot. As a result of different kinds of issues, gas supply shortages are one of the reasons, and of course, maintenance issues, water management issues in the case of hydro plants, and then transmission limitations. That is even the biggest problem.

Because once you are able to generate electricity, when you produce it, you should be able to evacuate everything that has been generated. In Nigeria, we are not able to do that. We have stranded power here and there. So, there is a need to fix the bottlenecks. There is a need to take the bull by the horns. They need to call everybody together and say, “You know what? Let’s get it done.” Otherwise, we will keep speaking grammar and playing to the gallery from generation to generation and administration to administration. Because, like I said, you cannot fix the adversity of 50 years in four years. So, it is not something you just think is an easy fix, but it is something that must be done. We must start doing something impactful from day one. It can be done. We just need to know what to do.

You alluded to the supply chain. You said we have generated power, but we return power. The one that we generate, we do not even use fully. So, what has been the problem over the years? Is the government not supposed to be prioritising supply at this stage?

Okay, first of all, let me talk about the siblings, then I will talk about the issues, and what we can do. I have always likened the power sector in Nigeria to siblings, with three children. We know our mother, but our father changes from time to time — sometimes every four years, sometimes every eight years. In the time of the military, it was for a much longer period. So, we have the father, but we know our mother. The firstborn is called Mr. Generation Company. That is the producer of electricity. The second is called Mr. Transmission, which is the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). The last one, which I represent, are the Discos — the electricity distribution companies. These are siblings from the same mother. We live in the same house, but we live in different rooms. Sometimes, we do not talk to each other. That is the number one problem. Sometimes, food will come into the house, and you know, in some cultures, like my Yoruba culture, the younger person is pampered. But in the case of the power sector, the younger person is bullied.

So, the senior person is there, the middle one is there. Until we all decide that we can come out of our rooms into the sitting room and say, “Gentlemen, what can we do?” You pass your own responsibility to this one, to that one. Number one, our senior brother, the Generation Company, is private. Our brother after that is the most pampered. He is still owned by the government. So, he does not even see himself as one of us. The one in the middle is pampered — a special child. Even though he is not disabled, he has been made disabled. Then the younger one is also not very efficient. That one, too, is private. But it still needs support to line up and work in harmony with the others. So, what we suffer from is nonalignment. When you generate 10,000 megawatts or 14,000 megawatts, you must be able to transmit it. If you generate 10,000, you must be able to transmit 10,000 megawatts, and you must also be able to distribute 10,000 megawatts. That is what should happen: 10,000 generated, 10,000 transmitted, 10,000 distributed. What we have in Nigeria is misalignment. You are capable of generating so much, but you cannot transmit it. We have never been able to transmit 7,000 megawatts consistently since 1960 until this morning.

So, I look at South Africa and other countries, and we are failing. I have said it before on this programme, and I will say it again. If you have a child that is not paying attention to studies and is not doing well in school, you try to correct the child, and the child still refuses to improve. If you are not capable of taking care of your own child, give the child up for adoption. You do not need to change the name, but something needs to be done about transmission.

Okay, let me ask you this. I want us to talk because when you answered the first question, you mentioned that “We can’t have change without the presidency.”

Yes.

When you were answering the second question again, the child you are pointing at is the one under the presidency. So, obviously, the father needs to be very involved, and our President had promised us electricity. Do you think that based on the actions of the past few years, he is really serious about giving us power. Especially when we had a minister who, before he stepped down, was called the ‘Minister of Darkness’ instead of the Minister of Power. What do you say to that? What do you think the President should be doing?”

I think the President needs to be more interested and personally involved. The power sector in Nigeria is the most important sector because if you fix the power sector, it will even improve security and everything else. Once there is power, many things will come with it, including industrialisation, job opportunities, and other things that can make the country better. It is not enough for people to simply send memos to the President. I think the President, along with some loyal and honest people around him, should investigate further and get to know things more deeply. For instance, it should not be automatic for us to renew people’s tenure. Once somebody’s tenure is to be renewed, we need to go back and check: what has that person done, and what has the person done well? We need to be practical. Nigeria does not lack theoretical answers. We have good policies. Where we fail, where we drop the ball is in implementation. We need bold reform. Bold in the sense of taking the bull by the horns. We need to show more interest, and put the country before self. Because again, over the years, what we have been suffering from is the fact that, sometimes, we are self-serving, and that is the truth. So, the President needs to be aware of certain things, and I will quickly run through what I think we need to do to get things fixed.

Number one, we need consistent policy formulation and implementation. In terms of policy formation, we are actually not doing badly now. In fact, the federal regulator we have today and the leadership in place are among the best so far since 2005 when we started having NERC (Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission).

The people in NERC are very good. I am even aware that the President has not had a single meeting with the NERC executives. He needs to call them, and say, “Guys, what is going on?” So, he can hear from the other side. It is not enough to listen only to the Ministry of Power. You also need to have the NERC Chairman, Vice Chairman, and executives come and explain themselves personally to the President. That is why I say the President needs to take charge. It is not enough to appoint somebody there. You also have to show interest. So then, implementation is our problem. When I say consistent policy formulation and implementation, which is number one.

Number two, our country needs to have respect for the sanctity of contracts. Number three, commercialisation of gas. We need commercialisation of gas to attract investment and exploration. Gas-fired plants account for about three-quarters of what we use. So, we need to look again into the issue of gas so that gas will be available for domestic use at a commercial value, and that requires money. Then, like I said earlier, number four is alignment of the value chain. We need to align the value chain because what we have now is not unified. There is no commercial logic in what we do. If you take care of generation and spend so much money on generation, but they cannot evacuate or distribute the power, that is a failure. If generation is good and distribution can take 6,000 megawatts, but transmission cannot transmit 6,000 megawatts, that is not good. That is why alignment is very important.

Then comprehensive metering is also very important. We have failed in that area. That is the only way you can enable revenue recovery. MAP is good, but very slow in execution. We are not doing well enough. The other time, somebody said meters are free. We should not make universal statements. Our statements should be qualified. We should explain clearly, and let people know the exact figures. If I bring in two million meters, and we need eight million, I should say, “These are the two million meters that are free.” That way, people will know they can still go through MAP for the remaining six million meters that we require as a nation.

We should also bring out figures. We should be open with figures.

You had mentioned MDAs that are owing Discos money, and some of these agencies — you mentioned one — about one point something billion in Port Harcourt communities, like Afam. So, what can the President do about this?

MDAs debt is an embarrassing one. Every time we keep asking. MDAs means ministries, departments, and agencies. People are even owing 5,000 naira to Discos, and still not paying. Some pay only ₦1,000 or ₦3,000. Sometimes, they even bribe the marketer with ₦500, and that person leaves the ₦5,000 debts till next month. So, once you leave a property, wherever you go, the debt follows you. And we’ve been begging that this is something we need to do. NIMC needs to cooperate with us, the government, and I’m saying the President. I’m now talking to the President. The President is the person who can make this thing happen because you are going to offend people. Yes, once we say NIN and BVN should be on your bill, wherever you go, the day you leave Lagos State and get a job in Abuja, you carry your bill with you. And with that, we have a better system. These are the things, I think, in summary, we need to do as a nation. International oil companies are not part of the power sector. Once you don’t pay them, they will simply pull the plug. That was what happened within the last two months, and that is why you saw that, at a time, the Federal Government decided to pay that debt of ₦3.3 trillion. That is something that accrued over a long period of time — not just this administration, and not even the last administration. Of course, it continued, and even this administration is trying to pay it. We are having daily problems. So, we need to deal with that.

Amazing, very eye-opening. Why is there no light? Because in the last two months, many parts of the country have not had light.

The lack of electricity in the last two months, to be honest, has to do mainly with gas legacy debts. What do I mean? There have been debts owed to gas suppliers. And remember when I mentioned generation, transmission, distribution. Apart from the issue of gas debts, another reason we do not have light is maintenance issues. Pipeline vandalism is another problem we have. Maintenance issues and all of these also speak to the issue of payment. If you pay the market, as I always say, they will have money to maintain all these infrastructure. These are the issues why we do not have light. Our generation companies… there are only two ways in Nigeria so far. I hope we can go to solar, and I’ll come to that. But we only generate electricity through hydro, which is water – Kainji, Shiroro, and Jebba. Three major ones. Of course, we need to go back and check those river basin authorities. There’s one in my state — river basin authority. There are nine megawatts there. Nobody is using it since 1982. It is just lying there. Now, the other thing is, gas is the fuel used by generation companies.

President Bola Tinubu, during his campaign for the 2023 election, said, “Hold me accountable. I will give you power; don’t vote for me for a second term, unless I can give you good reason.” What do you make of this statement in the light of the current situation in Nigeria?

Let me say something that may offend some people, and I have said it before. I have been part of the power sector since November 1, 2013. I am saying that today, things have improved compared to before, except for the last two months when there was a problem of gas supply. Check your area. Check your neighbourhood. Ask your friends. Ask your family. The system has improved a bit in the last two years. Yes. And we are not where we are supposed to be. We are still far away. I would say we have failed. But to say it is worse than 2013, whoever says that does not know what they are saying. All these crises in the power sector — whether it is “I provide power” or “I have not been able to provide power” — we should come up and say: this is what we have, this is where we are, and this is where we are supposed to be. If and when I get into government, or if I am an opposition leader, this is what I will do. It is not enough to just play to the gallery. Why would I give you my strategy? You, too, do your own strategy now. But you know, people have said the issues in power, and you mentioned it — you are saying from 1989 to 1999, no power plants were built. We are talking about over 30 to 40 years ago. So, the problem of power has been compounding over the past 40 years. What is the realistic timeline Nigerians should expect for improvement? Should we say, “Let us give the government four years”? Can there be improvement within one year? Because when the President was coming in, he promised us electricity. And we felt okay, he had a roadmap for how it would go.

Why should government be owing money, when it declares revenue?

Sorry, they declared revenue into the general account. The MDAs. What I am saying is that we should now begin to do deduction at source. That is a major thing. Then we should also ensure a proper payment system for MDAs. The last time we tried to do it, we were resisted by people at an air force base. Yes, these are government institutions. So, we need to do what is right to get the right result. But as long as we have this huge billions of naira in MDAs debt, that is a problem. And these MDAs should show stronger leadership, and set good examples. That is what government needs to do. If your government entities are not paying electricity bills, how do you expect ordinary people on the street to know they need to pay? That is what I think we need to fix our electricity problem.

How do we discourage electricity theft by consumers?

We need to have special mobile courts. Let me tell you how it works. One issue is people bypassing meters, even big men. I have caught a big man before in a place called Bompai in Kano State. I caught a big man in a place called Trans-Amadi (Port Harcourt, Rivers State). So, we have seen this all over the country.

Once we catch them, and we have evidence, the sector should fund mobile courts through the chief judge of every state, with magistrates attached. I am happy a lawyer is here. Take a van to the marketplace, and try them summarily. This is a summary trial system that does not require custodial sentences. You do not need to send them to prison. Once they are guilty, you can make them sweep the market for one week instead of fines. Not fine as in money, but punishment — let them sweep the market. The moment people see a big man being disgraced like that publicly, they will stop stealing energy. Also, the President needs to decide how to follow the money. Let me give you an example. You have tenants who owe electricity bills on a property and then leave. That is the end. The burden is transferred to the next tenant or the landlord. The way out is this: tenants should have electricity accounts in their own names. And every bill in the country should be linked properly, with proper identification. And of course, apart from transparency, the Nigerian power sector needs access to cheap and long-term capital. When you borrow from the Nigerian banks, the interest rate is very high. So, it is time for government to think about development finance. Of course, they have done some of this already, but we also need to turn to institutions like the World Bank, AFDB, IFC, and others. Then, for us, as a people, we need to recognise electricity as a commodity with value. In other words, electricity is a product like Coca-Cola or Fanta. But our culture and attitude show that we often treat electricity as a social service, and we have a sense of entitlement. That is very bad.