Every country in this world is known for their never ending problems like pollution, water scarcity, lack of medical help etc. Nigeria is known for the lack of electricity for over 30 years. Despite trying to find ways to solve this issue, nothing till date has been effective.
The Nigerians have no choice but pay the electricity bill every month even if they survived with candles throughout the month. With the minimum income that they make, they spend most of that on the so called electricity that they don’t even receive. The government does not show any leniency when it comes to bills. The President of Nigeria tried his best to find sponsors and supporters in order to privatize the electricity area wise, but that of course turned out to be a failure too. Maybe he got too busy with the elections and his other duties, the electricity problem of the population didn’t seem so more of importance.
The epilepsy of electricity in Nigeria is also causing the small companies to shut down. In order to run the industry, they have to use generators which are very expensive and many find it extremely difficult to afford it. And that being the case, many companies find it exceedingly challenging to function and have no other choice, but close down. According to the recent reports, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria has promised to recover the cost of producing and issuing electricity for local and industrial consumption. This, of course, has to be at the cost of increasing tariff so that they get serious investors to help them out and give them most positive results.
The country which is flowing with fuel is unable to provide electricity to their citizen sounds like an insane plan. It’s turning into a situation where Nigeria is willing to help out the other countries but leave their own country to suffer. The students complain that they have poor eyesight studying under the low light. Hospitals aren’t able to give their best because of the lack of electricity. Silly problems are turning into major ones just because of electricity. If you ask a Nigerian how bad the electrical problem is, they would reply, “Our one hour power cuts are basically for two days. If it comes, it comes like a flash of a camera-just for a second-and it’s dark again. And if we’re lucky, we would get electricity for one hour at midnight. But what’s the use in that?”
Some of the solutions that they have found to solve this issue include using deposits of coals. A number of companies are working use generate electricity through coal, but they haven’t been that much of a success. Apart from that, they are also working on privatizing the sectors which would provide them electricity area-wise. They have been kind of successful but issues like high cost, this also seems to be not working so well for the Nigerians.
After 30 years of trying different ways of fixing this one little problem, it only gets worse. Doesn’t that mean they are doing something wrong? Isn’t the government keen enough to investigate more into it and figure out what exactly they are doing wrong? I guess their busy with ruining another project too. After all, they are estimating that they will need at least a $10 billion a year investment over the next decades to meet their energy needs.
It’s high time that the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, keeps up his word in fixing the electricity problem as the citizens are growing out of patience. They sternly protest saying, “We don’t want any excuses; we want solutions. Time is running out, and now is the time to act.”