Nigeria needs a minimum of 150,000 megawatts of electricity in
order to maximise productivity of the entire economy.
Toyin Dawod, managing partner, Capital Investment Group, a
California, United States-based diversified investment company, said to achieve
this, the country would need to localise the generation of electricity to make
it more efficient.
Mr. Dawood said the standard in the world is one megawatt per
thousand population. “And Nigeria has 150 million people,” he said in an email
response to enquiries.
He added that the reason Nigeria was not working is because all
power is concentrated in the federal government, instead of giving autonomy to
the states, local authorities, the judiciary, the legislature, and other
institutions.
“Our due diligence also tells us that the past attempts at
resolving the power problems for Nigeria have not worked because we put
emphasis on centralised power generation, instead of embracing distributive
generation,” Mr. Dawood said.
Policy change
He said there was need for a policy change that would transfer
the authority to generate power to each state and locality, because the local
governments can do a better job of providing for their own people under proper
supervision of the federal government.
President Goodluck Jonathan, last month, launched the power
reform agenda, which includes giving the private sector more participation in
the generation and distribution of power. This was followed with the
inauguration of a new board of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission
(NERC) that would oversee the activities of operators in the power sector.
Barth Nnaji, the chairman of the presidential task force on
power, said recently that Nigeria would require about $5 billion annually over
the next 10 years in order to achieve stable power supply.
Mr. Nnaji said the bulk of this amount would have to come from
the private sector. He explained that the country was going to create an
enabling environment for private participation in a sector that has been solely
dominated by the government over the years.
Mr. Dawod is, however, skeptical about the preparedness of
government to attract and retain foreign private investors in the sector.
“The federal government is trying to solve everyone’s problem
when it can’t even solve its own problem. The problem with our government is
that they believe that Nigerians are so dumb. I believe different. I believe
that individual Nigerians are smart enough to solve their own problems, if only
the government will leave them alone,” he said.
He said the strategy of his firm was to build power plants for
Nigerians, create employment for Nigerians, and transfer technology and
management to Nigerians. His company, he said, was already involved in building
power plants in America and other parts of the world.
“I am an entrepreneur. My job is to bring the factors of
production together and create a viable business. Our plan can create a minimum
of 40,000 jobs over the next two years and a multiplier effect of another
400,000 jobs,” Mr. Dawood further said.
Stymied growth
According to him, Nigeria is yet to reach its full potential due
to the shortfall in power supply. “Our country is being stymied by lack of
vision on the part of the so called leaders. The government is happy to
announce to the world that Nigeria recorded a growth of 7.9% so far this year.
Can you imagine what our growth will be if we have 24/7 electricity?”
He said with optimum electricity supply, Nigeria is capable of
achieving 16 percent growth in GDP, which would translate to additional $36
billion in GDP output.
“Shouldn’t we then make power generation a priority, including
declaring a state of emergency to generate power as fast as we can? That is
what our plan calls for,” he said.
