On Buhari's Sack Of The Power Minister

Fred Nwaozor

In the not unusual way and procedure of holding a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, it held on Wednesday, 1st September 2021, and was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari. In the said meeting, something very remarkable and unusual happened, and such had never transpired in the history of FEC meetings under the reign of President Buhari. Therein, the number one citizen of the Nigerian State announced the outright sack of the Honourable Minister of Power in the person of Engr. Sale Mamman as well as his counterpart in the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, Mr. Mohammed Nanono. Consequently, the duo was immediately replaced with Engr. Abubakar Aliyu for Power and Dr. Mohammad Abubakar for Agric. It’s worthy of note that the new bosses were already members of the President’s cabinet, and were previously the Minister of State for Works & Housing, and Environment Minister, respectively. It suffices to say that they were redeployed.

The President, without mincing words, disclosed that the process of reshuffling his cabinet for effective impact shall be continuous, having stated that it was the “tradition of subjecting our projects and programmes implementation to independent and critical self-review through sector reporting during cabinet meetings and at retreats”. He further said the “significant review steps” had helped to identify and strengthen weak areas, close gaps, build cohesion and synergy in governance, manage the economy as well as improve the “delivery of public good to Nigerians”. Though no definite reason was given for the President’s action, speculations had it that the abrupt development might not be unconnected with performance of the duo as ministers. However, the following day during his interview on the Channels Television, the President’s Adviser on Media, Mr. Femi Adesina refuted the claim that the sack of the ministers was linked to poor performance. The media aide said although the President must have had concrete reasons for dropping the duo, there was no place it was stated that their performance was weak, hence asked people to desist from such ill-advised speculations. It’s worth noting that the prime interest and essence of this column has been and remains tech-driven issues, thus my attention to the sack of the country’s power minister, hence this topic. It’s on record that this was the first time the President would sack any serving minister in his government since assumption to office in 2015. This was the reason this very move came as a surprise and shock to his allies, and perhaps the onlookers.

Even when the position of some of the ministers – during the President’s first term – was shrouded in myriad of controversies, and most Nigerians called for their sack without much ado, the boss seemed adamant and apparently gave a deaf ear to the development. It could be recalled that the current cabinet was constituted by the President on 21st August 2019; needless to say that the sack of the ministers came exactly two years after their inauguration. The half-time of any leadership tenure is the most suitable period to x-ray the overall performance and operations of the administration and its appointees with a view to making amends where need be. This is to assert that such action of Mr. President was orderly and acceptable, if it was genuinely done or not politically motivated. But one might wonder why he refused to make such move during his first term, between 2015 and 2019 precisely, not even when several concerns were raised by teeming Nigerians in respect of under-performance, incompetence, misappropriation, corruption, and allied matters. One could recall, I personally told the President on this column and in other fora that there was a compelling need to split the then Power, Works and Housing Ministry headed by Mr. Babatunde Fashola, and a few other well-meaning analysts equally joined in the crusade, yet our collective request wasn’t granted.

I made it clear, as at then, that the power sector deserved to have a separate ministry to be manned by a well-experienced person as minister. The President waited till his second term to do the needful. What if he didn’t succeed in his second-term bid? Notwithstanding, ‘it’s better late than never’. Two years after eventually creating a separate ministry for the power sector, the minister is being presented with a sack letter, and consequently replaced with someone else who probably is believed to possess the required requisite to perform the long-awaited magic in the troubling and dwindling sector. The big question at this juncture, which necessitated this tech-driven topic, is: the actual remedy to the Nigeria’s power sector quagmire, does it lie in the ability of the minister or the extant policies surrounding the said sector? To candidly tender the apt and succinct answer to this enquiry, we may need to revisit the history and facts book. The country’s generation sub-sector comprises about 23 grid-connected generating plants. These plants are in operation round the country with a total installed capacity of 10,396MW, with available capacity of 6,056MW.

The thermal-based generation has an installed capacity of 8,457.6MW, with available capacity of 4,996MW. The hydro-based generation possesses a total installed capacity of barely 1,938.4MW, with available capacity of 1,060MW. It’s noteworthy that the thermal segment has been sold to the private sector, except the Sapele Power Plc – generating about 414MW – that is 51% sold. Similarly, the hydro segment is under long-term concession. In its effort to increase the level of power generation in the country, the Federal Government (FG) in 2004 under the leadership of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, incorporated the Niger-Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) as a public sector funded emergency intervention scheme. The NDPHC was imbued with the mandate to manage the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), which essentially involved the construction of identified critical infrastructure in the generation, transmission, and distribution as well as the natural gas supply sub-sectors of the electric power value chain. In total, the NIPP power stations were targeted to add about 4,774MW of electricity to the national grid network. Some of these stations have been privatized while plans are underway to sell the remaining ones to interested investors towards increasing private-sector participation in the power sector, thereby improving the ongoing reform programme of the FG. In furtherance of the reform policy direction, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has in the past licensed many private Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Some of the IPPs are reportedly at various stages of project development.

This analysis implies that the generation sub-sector is currently operating under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), with almost 97% participation of the private investors. But the transmission segment is completely managed by the FG, whilst the distribution sub-sector is being operated and managed by private investors. It’s imperative to acknowledge that, even if all these generating plants are in good form, or functioning as expected, their total installed capacity will still not generate the needed Megawatts (MW) of electricity across the federation. Recently, by implementing reforms, Nigeria targeted 40,000MW generating capacity by 2020. Going by the estimate, she needed to expend approximately $10bn per annum on the power sector, to achieve the motive. Taking a painstaking cognizance of the abridged survey or review, as presented above, we would understand that the country’s lingering power crisis ought to be blamed on the epileptic policies guiding the sector, not the ability of the minister as being perceived. The fact is that, even if the best brain and most active technocrat is in charge of the Power Ministry, the sector will continue to wail and bleed.

The FG needs to, as a matter of urgency, decentralize the transmission grid, thereby giving room for each region or zone to manage their respective grids. This measure would help to eliminate the unending burden occasioned by theft, criminality, and corruption being experienced by the national grid. Hence, the private sector ought to be allowed to invest in the power transmission. There’s need for a candid legislation in this regard. In the same vein, healthy policies should also be created to encourage generation of electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar. This wouldn’t need to be connected to the national grid, hence the various states can see to its operations and management on a daily basis. The policy should equally create enabling environment to enable our trained technologists or engineers manufacture the needed devices for the generation. More so, formidable policies must be formulated by the FG to discourage the endless rampant importation of conventional household/industrial power generating devices whose operations depend solely on fuel, diesel, or gas, as the case may be. The importers of the equipment won’t live to see a functional power sector in Nigeria, hence the need for a policy or legislation to tame their unwholesome activities in the country. The political will must be worn like clothe to actualize the people’s aim. Hence, we must therefore look inwards towards solving our collective problem, rather than being myopic or shying away from the truth. Think about it!