Electricity: Getting It Right Finally

This Day

22 May 2011

Electricity: Getting It Right Finally

No policy initiative of President Goodluck Jonathan has excited as much public interest and the imagination of the international community as the launch on August 26, 2010, of the Road Map for the Power Sector Reform, a compendium of short-, medium- and long-term measures-- as well as the costs and timelines—to provide robust electricity in Nigeria. Nine months into the Road Map, the public expectations seem justified. There has been a substantial improvement in power supply across the country. Nigeria now generates 4,000Megawatts. Though this is only 10% the 40,000MW produced by South Africa, it is the greatest quantum of power ever generated in our history. In other words, Nigeria has, under Jonathan’s leadership, generated an additional 1,000MW in just one year. This is impressive by every account.

Yet, the improved power supply we have noticed in the last two months in particular does not owe to only increased power generation. There are two critical factors at play here which are often ignored in popular discourse, namely, system stability and adequate attention now paid to other critical sections of the power supply chain such as transmission and distribution, to say nothing about marketing or revenue generation.