Every day, I’m increasingly convinced that Nigerian politicians live in an echo chamber that prevents them from being in tune with reality. From their utterances and actions, it’s all the evidence you need. On Monday at a media parley in his Abuja office, Minister of Power Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola said that well-meaning Nigerians can attest to the fact that power supply has improved compared to what it was before the Buhari-led administration came into power into 2015.
”The task going forward is to solve the outstanding issues of estimated billing, supply of meters, add more power and make the supply steady which I stated will be our medium-term goal.” Fashola added.
First, who are the well-meaning Nigerians Fashola is referring to? Nigeria’s electricity issues has steadily worsened since Buhari was elected as president in 2015. And that’s the truth. Prior and during the political season, one would expect that power supply would have been given a boost to woe Nigerians into voting for the incumbent administration, but it wasn’t the case. In Lagos, where I live, electricity has rarely ever been satisfactorily stable and in this report from Punch, the nation’s power generation fell to 3,231 megawatts last week Wednesday, more than a week after the latest system collapse.
The grid has continued to suffer collapse over the years amid a lack of spinning reserve that is meant to forestall such occurrences. Why is that we rarely have Fashola making statements about this dip in power generation? If you are one of the well-meaning Nigerians who has been experiencing excellent power supply in whatever area, feel free to send me message.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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