Most times we hear complaints about the poor supply of power nationwide, but we rarely hear the reasons why it has always been so since the country's existence as a nation. This issue of epileptic power supply has been here with us for a very long time and I always wonder what exactly the problem is that makes it impossible to have 24 hrs power supply. The recent reason I heard was that the militants are blowing up pipelines. But before the bombing started the power situation was in fact in some cases worse than before the bombing started.

I think Nigerians need to know the real reasons why we do not have constant power supply before expecting to start seeing any improvement, so we can know exactly who and what to actually blame for this mess and whether we will ever see adequate supply of power anytime soon.

Please I would like knowledgeable folks in this issue to tell us why it has been difficult for decades and counting for Nigeria to generate power constantly without interruption.

I actually suspect there is a foreign dimension to it, ie that our 'leaders' are in some sort of collaboration with foreign powers to limit or slow the rate of Nigerian development. It is plausible that our leaders are agents of foreign powers masquerading as patriots.

Rossikk:
I actually suspect there is a foreign dimension to it, ie that our 'leaders' are in some sort of collaboration with foreign powers to limit or slow the rate of Nigerian development. It is plausible that our leaders are agents of foreign powers masquerading as patriots.

There is no foreign dimension to anything..we only have incapable and incompetent leaders...thank you.....

doyinisaac:
There is no foreign dimension to anything..we only have incapable and incompetent leaders...thank you.....

How do you know there is no foreign dimension? Even "incompetent" leaders can facilitate power supply. There's no great magic or technical wizardry required to generate electricity.

Rossikk:
I actually suspect there is a foreign dimension to it, ie that our 'leaders' are in some sort of collaboration with foreign powers to limit or slow the rate of Nigerian development.

How possible can this be? And what will be the gain of our leaders to collaborate with foreigners and deny the country adequate power supply?

Rossikk:
How do you know there is no foreign dimension?

Leave story jare..the bad power supply is caused by bad governance and corruption..simple...

There should be no excuse for failure - late nelson Mandela.

Ontarget:

How possible can this be? And what will be the gain of our leaders to collaborate with foreigners and deny the country adequate power supply?

It could be simply the threat of assassination that makes them comply. It's not hard to see how even someone like Buhari could be warned off increasing power output or risk the fall of his govt.

doyinisaac:
Leave story jare..the bad power supply is caused by bad governance and corruption..simple...

There should be no excuse for failure - late nelson Mandela.

How come bad governance and corruption did not stop govt from building thousands of schools, hospitals, universities, roads, bridges, flyovers, airports, stadia, etc, since independence? But for some strange reason, power output seems to stand still? That makes no sense.

doyinisaac:
Leave story jare..the bad power supply is caused by bad governance and corruption ..simple...

There should be no excuse for failure - late nelson Mandela.

No matter how corrupt Nigeria is at least the government has been having a lot of money at their disposal to spend on power generation. Just like roads are still being built in spite of all the massive corruption.

Rossikk:
How come bad governance and corruption did not stop govt from building thousands of schools, hospitals, universities, roads, bridges, airports, stadia, etc, since independence? But for some strange reason, power output seems to stand still? That makes no sense.

We are saying the same thing...I repeat leave story...if our leaders are ready to do things right they will do it....very soon u people will blame witchcraft for the bad power supply..

Rossikk:
How come bad governance and corruption did not stop govt from building thousands of schools, hospitals, universities, roads, bridges, airports, stadia, etc, since independence? But for some strange reason, power output seems to stand still? That makes no sense.

Exactly what I was thinking about

It is Buisness

Ontarget:

Exactly what I was thinking about

Thank you. You see, even with the corruption and all that, Nigeria is still developing, and has made strides in many areas. Look at telecoms. We lead Africa in the sector. Infrastructure-wise, we are always on an upward trajectory, building things here and there, including brand new cities like Abuja. But for some strange reason, this upward development trajectory is not seen in the power sector. That is very strange. Nigeria should be generating at least 15 to 20,000 mw by now even with all the corruption and mismanagement we have experienced. But we seem to be stuck at 3 to 4000 mw for how many years now? 20? 30? Very strange. And it doesn't seem to matter how clean or corruption-free a new govt is - the problem remains.....Come on now...Something's going on.

Simple. APC said it was as a result of misrule of the PDP government. That minister of darkness even boasted that a serious government can provide constant light within six months in power.

easy too much dependency on oil and gas to produce when we have others mean buh neglecting those sector Eg Enugu and coal they have the highest deposit of coal in Africa enoff to power almost all the S.E States constant electricity they also have oil in that region
we also have Niger state ie kanji dam which was once a booming sector which could generate at least up to 4000MW enoff for the North they also have the hottest region they could adopt the solar system energy bcuz their sun no b for here lol
we have Oil in pH akwaibom cross river delta bayelsa the major source of electricity production in Nigeria they have the capacity to produce thousands of mega watts enoff for the SS region

the S.w have oil too although not enoff to generate lotta electricity they can adopt the solar method there and there u have it

bhhh corruption is a major role and depency on oil and gas sector too bad corruption has eaten deep into nigeria

What was the name of that Jonathan's minister of power that was removed from office - for doing his job too well?

The Simple answer is corruption

Allocation through FG , minister chops, director chops , china or whoever gives them equipment chops , imprest , special funds for maintaining poles and wires too will be chopped my regional director , and the Division will chop , the petty pot belle oga in a one room office too will chop

eventually no money gets to where they will need it to ix wires, separate wires, service transformers , insulate railings e.t.c

Same goes for water supply and virtually everything too

i hope Nairaland will not barn me for exposing the truth, Nigerian should never expect constant Electricity b'cos that is where you pay your tax indirectly, jst imagine how many litres of fuel the whole Nigerian are burning using Generator monthly to Yearly e.t.c........ tnx

If the power sector works, most of the billionaires you know will turn paupers in a year or two. Many of them can hardly come up with viable alternatives to generate wealth.
The banks borrow importers of rice, fuel, flour 80% of their capital.
That is where their profit comes from. The same reason why the rails have not been working for decades.
A lot of individuals are profiting from the suffering of the nigerians.

DaBullIT:
The Simple answer is corruption

Allocation through FG , minister chops, director chops , china or whoever gives them equipment chops , imprest , special funds for maintaining poles and wires too will be chopped my regional director , and the Division will chop , the petty pot belle oga in a one room office too will chop

eventually no money gets to where they will need it to ix wires, separate wires, service transformers , insulate railings e.t.c

Same goes for water supply and virtually everything too

Your ''simple'' answer is the problem. We always love ''simple'' answers requiring little thought or change of perception.

Even Jonathan with all the corruption in his govt, built 12 brand new universities in the country. Built railway systems. Got the trains working. Remodelled 15 airports. Built and revamped many roads. Why did corruption not prevent all that? But it prevented power from improving? You people overstate this corruption issue. There is more to the power issue than corruption. I think the same issue affects our steel industry as well. No matter how honest and well-meaning the govt in power, Ajaokuta never gets fixed.

Who wants to stop Nigeria from becoming an industrial power?

Ontarget:
Most times we hear complaints about the poor supply of power nationwide, but we rarely hear the reasons why it has always been so since the country's existence as a nation. This issue of epileptic power supply has been here with us for a very long time and I always wonder what exactly the problem is that makes it impossible to have 24 hrs power supply. The recent reason I heard was that the militants are blowing up pipelines. But before the bombing started the power situation was in fact in some cases worse than before the bombing started.

I think Nigerians need to know the real reasons why we do not have constant power supply before expecting to start seeing any improvement, so we can know exactly who and what to actually blame for this mess and whether we will ever see adequate supply of power anytime soon.

Please I would like knowledgeable folks in this issue to tell us why it has been difficult for decades and counting for Nigeria to generate power constantly without interruption.

we needed to 100 GW.
We only have 6

Ontarget:

How possible can this be? And what will be the gain of our leaders to collaborate with foreigners and deny the country adequate power supply?

did our leaders not sell our forefathers into slavery? For mirror and salt.

Rossikk:
How come bad governance and corruption did not stop govt from building thousands of schools, hospitals, universities, roads, bridges, flyovers, airports, stadia, etc, since independence? But for some strange reason, power output seems to stand still? That makes no sense.

those are liabilities not assets. You can supply a whole Ferrari but 5 missing wheel nuts or spark plugs will make it junk .

Rossikk:


Your ''simple'' answer is the problem. We always love ''simple'' answers requiring little thought or change of perception.

Even Jonathan with all the corruption in his govt, built 12 brand new universities in the country. Built railway systems. Got the trains working. Remodelled 15 airports. Built and revamped many roads. Why did corruption not prevent all that? But it prevented power from improving? You people overstate this corruption issue. There is more to the power issue than corruption. I think the same issue affects our steel industry as well. No matter how honest and well-meaning the govt in power, Ajaokuta never gets fixed.

Who wants to stop Nigeria from becoming an industrial power?

the other industrial powers

DaBullIT:
The Simple answer is corruption

Allocation through FG , minister chops, director chops , china or whoever gives them equipment chops , imprest , special funds for maintaining poles and wires too will be chopped my regional director , and the Division will chop , the petty pot belle oga in a one room office too will chop

eventually no money gets to where they will need it to ix wires, separate wires, service transformers , insulate railings e.t.c

Same goes for water supply and virtually everything too

I am almost tempted to say witches and wizards.lol.

You are correct. i currently work as a distribution engineer in a developed country. The problem we have in Nigeria is delapidated and outdated electrical wires, poles, aparatus and equipment. These equipment don't come cheap and cost 100's of million of dollars to maintain annually. let me give an idea of how expensive these are. The cooperation I work for supplies and generates 4,000MW of electricity to a population of just 1million people, yet we spend on average $1billion annually on maintenance and infrastructure.

Nigeria with a population of over 150million, how much do we generate? how much do we spend on maintenence of structures owned by the government. Money that is not even enough allocated for these maintenance work in Nigeria is chopped by corrupt politicians and electrical workers. Generation of electricity is expensive, but nigerians always protest against increatment in tarrif. What of people that bypass electric meters?

Electricity generation is sophisticated. It is not like roads where you can navigate pot holes or schools where you can cut cost easily. When something goes wrong at any point in the transmission or distribution, a region could be shut off the supply for a long time that is even if there is generation from the stations. Locating the point of fault is another issue. we don't have sophisticated GIS systems and control rooms to locate faults. Power generation nko? We are not generating enough power from the stations. NDA keep busting pipelines supplying gas to gas-fired stations. We haven't thought of solar farms, windmills, extra hydro stations e.t.c

princey83:

I am almost tempted to say witches and wizards.lol.

You are correct. i currently work as a distribution engineer in a developed country. The problem we have in Nigeria is delapidated and outdated electrical wires, poles, aparatus and equipment. These equipment don't come cheap and cost 100's of million of dollars to maintain annually. let me give an idea of how expensive these are. The cooperation I work for supplies and generates 4,000MW of electricity to a population of just 1million people, yet we spend on average $1billion annually on maintenance and infrastructure.

Nigeria with a population of over 150million, how much do we generate? how much do we spend on maintenence of structures owned by the government. Money that is not even enough allocated for these maintenance work in Nigeria is chopped by corrupt politicians and electrical workers. Generation of electricity is expensive, but nigerians always protest against increatment in tarrif. What of people that bypass electric meters?

Electricity generation is sophisticated. It is not like roads where you can navigate pot holes or schools where you can cut cost easily. When something goes wrong at any point in the transmission or distribution, a region could be shut off the supply for a long time that is even if there is generation from the stations. Locating the point of fault is another issue. we don't have sophisticated GIS systems and control rooms to locate faults. Power generation nko? We are not generating enough power from the stations. NDA keep busting pipelines supplying gas to gas-fired stations. We haven't thought of solar farms, windmills, extra hydro stations e.t.c

If all you stated explains the reasons for Nigeria's power failure then Nigerians shouldn't expect constant power even in 15 years time.