ABUJA: Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s election campaign has trumpeted his reform of the power sector as a crowning achievement. But electricity shortages persist and the underperformance is a major political issue.
Jonathan took the bold step in 2013 of selling parts of the moribund state electricity firm and says the privatisation has bourne fruit. “Power supply in many parts of the country has improved to a consistent level of 15 hours a day,” a presidential website says.
That is not the experience of most Nigerians, and the opposition has given him little credit, focusing instead on $16 billion allocated to improving power under previous president Olusegun Obasanjo that has yielded no tangible improvements.
Saturday’s vote between Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former junta leader Muhammadu Buhari is expected to be the closest since the end of military rule in 1999 and could see the PDP and Jonathan lose power.
Both leaders have made a point of saying voters should look at their achievements and policy goals, putting the electricity issue at centre stage in Africa’s top energy producer.
The wealthy and businesses can afford generators and market places buzz with their sound, but the average Nigerian suffers no light or water for days at a time, since the pumps stop working if the electricity is out for a long period. The only place in the capital that never seems to blink is the Transcorp Hilton, the unofficial centre of politics.
Nigeria has a population of 170 million but an installed capacity that fluctuates between around 6,000 to just over 7,000 MW depending on which plant turbines are down, according to a daily report by the transmission company. South Africa’s capacity is almost seven times greater for a population less than a third as big.
Six new power plants have been built and another four are in the works, but output remains woeful as the plants do not get sufficient supplies of natural gas and the transmission lines cannot handle the power.
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