Somewhere within the bulk of Babatunde Fashola, a champion lurks in chains – the people’s champ. Until he is freed, the two-time governor of Lagos state and incumbent Minister of Power, Works and Housing, will continually manifest as a spent idol and plaything of President Muhammadu Buhari, in the eyes of his most virulent critics.
Someday, Fashola will be President or Senate President perhaps. The former governor of Lagos state fulfills the latent prospects of becoming something more than a romanticised icon and overhyped minister cum mascot of the ruling class. It could be thrilling to see him serve Nigeria in more esteemed and valuable capacities. Until then, it would be electrifying to see Fashola revivify the comatose power sector.
Will he? This is hardly a rhetoric about his capacity to resolve the nation’s electricity woes; Fashola will resolve Nigeria’s power problem – if he could get over himself and actually merit the plaudits unctuously heaped upon him by a lapdog press, sycophantic loyalists and other groupies constituting Camp Fashola.
Right now, Nigeria ails in the vicious grip of a comatose power sector managed by a tyrannical and inept workforce. The country needs the healing touch of an ingenious Minister of Power, Works and Housing. Sadly, Fashola is not up to the task. Not yet. The former Lagos governor suffers the rare affliction of the proverbial patrician lord. Thus like the brittle creature, he is handicapped by hubris and his genius asphyxiates behind a wall of aristocratic disdain.
This explains his insistence that Nigerians have no choice but to accept and swallow the hike in electricity tariff as an unavoidable bitter pill. Subsequently, the Consumer Rights Advancement Organisation (CRADO) sounded the alarm over the arbitrary tariff, lamenting that Nigerians pay the highest tariff per kilowatt in Africa. According to a statement signed by the group, “Before this increment, Nigerians have been paying the highest tariff per kilowatt in Africa and contiguous regions. We pay higher than Egypt and countries with stronger economies,” the statement said. The statement was released in the wake of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC)’s implementation of new electricity tariff for residential and industrial users across the country on February 1. Under the new tariff regime, according to CRADO, customers covered by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) who currently pay N13.91 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) will witness an increase by N9.60. Consumers under the Eko and Ikeja electricity distribution areas who currently pay N12.87kWh and N13.61kWh respectively will witness a N10 and N8 increase respectively in their energy charges. Electricity consumers covered by Kaduna and Benin Discos who currently pay N16.90kWh and N12.54kWh will witness an increase of N11.05 and N9.26 respectively in their energy charges.
For commercial consumers in Ibadan and Enugu who currently pay N25.18kWh and N24.01kWh respectively, their energy charge will increase by N12.08 and N13.35 respectively. CRADO maintained that despite the fact that metering is the contract equipment between the electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and electricity consumers, the DISCOs have continued to exploit Nigerians by the extreme billing system for majority of consumers, while deliberately refusing to make available prepaid meters.
As there has been no significant improvement in service delivery, most consumers are also not metered in accordance with the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of November 1, 2013, which stipulates that within 18 months gestation period, all consumers must have been metered. Nonetheless, the DISCOs imposed the arbitrary tariff increase, with unflinching support from Fashola.
Classic Fashola; flaunting that compassionate yet menacing disposition that heralds the infliction of a necessary evil on poor, helpless citizenry, the minister insisted that the electricity tariff increase was a bitter pill that Nigerians must swallow, for the country’s growth. It is obvious that Fashola is unaware of the tyranny of the DISCOs on helpless electricity consumers.
Recently, residents of Millennium Estate, Ijaiye, Lagos trooped to the neighbourhood office of the Ikeja Distribution Company (IKEDC) to protest unfair billing regime imposed on the residents. According to them, they pay over N100, 000 bribe to IKEDC officials in the zone every month, to prevent them from disconnecting their homes and making away with their electricity cables. Residents in the estate without prepaid meters pay an average of N5, 500 monthly for non-existent electricity supply yet IKEDC, Ijaiye-Ojokoro zone, refuses to provide them prepaid meters. Instead, they allegedly request for bribes from the residents in order to facilitate prompt supply of the meters. One of the zonal office’s marketing manager reportedly bragged that IKEDC will deny the estate electricity supply until the residents learn to fear them and treat them to more mouthwatering bribes. Thus is an example of how DISCOs’ officials tyrannize poor, helpless electricity consumers – they expect to be deified.
Worse evil are perpetrated by DISCOs’ field operatives and administrative staff in my Ogun state neighbourhood. Several communities in Owode, Ijako and Ota have been living in darkness over the last seven months yet the DISCOs keep bringing exorbitant bills to the residents. It is at the backdrop of these impunities that Fashola authorised a draconian increase in electricity tariff by wily DISCOs.
However, at a recent meeting with operators in the power sector in Lagos, Fashola, while inspecting ongoing works at the Alagbon substation in Ikoyi, admitted to reporters that the right thing should have been to improve electricity supply before increasing the tariff. But he claimed it was not possible considering the rot the incumbent government inherited from the previous administration of Goodluck Jonathan.
It is interesting to note that although Fashola admitted that the imposition of the tariff increase was wrong, he had no trouble damning a legislative order that he stayed action on it. He suffered no scruple forcing it down the citizenry’s throats, calling it a bitter but necessary pill. There is no gainsaying Fashola goofed by imposing the tariff increase on electricity consumers without attendant improvement in power generation. Why force the citizenry to swallow bitter pills for the DISCOs’ ailment and his administrative weakness? Why not direct the DISCOs to make the prepaid meters available to everyone before increasing tariff?
If Fashola were really in control and truly efficient at his new brief, he would not empower the DISCOs to fleece the citizenry via a tariff hike for electricity that is yet to be enjoyed. Rather he would direct the DISCOs to fix the distribution end of the electricity equation before embarking on tariff hike. And the power minister’s obsession about nuclear power stations resounds as a pathetic joke. Fashola should attain passable efficiency at managing the country’s power stations before getting high on the possibility of building nuclear power stations.
Electricity tariff shouldn’t increase when the extant law for such increment was not followed in consonance with Section 76 of the Power Sector Reform Act, 2005. Fashola’s disregard for a subsisting court order of May 28, 2015 and a subsequent warning by Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, barring increase in electricity tariff establishes his contempt for the rule of law even though he is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
The minister insisted that the tariff increase reflects the realities that the DISCOs are facing in the sector. Many Nigerians scoff at his justification, insisting that improved services should precede the increase. And that is justifiable enough. But the almighty minister disagrees.
In respect of the arbitrary tariff, Fashola perpetuates himself as a patrician lord that acts without feeling – this makes him seem cruel in indifference and remoteness from the people’s woes.