NIGERIA TRIES TO SOLVE ITS ELECTRICITY PROBLEMS BY NAME CHANGES

First it was ECN (Electricity Corporation of Nigeria). When most parts of Nigeria complained of perpetual darkness, instead of building more power plants, a commission decided that changing the name to NEPA (National Electric Power Authority) would solve the problem because ECN is not national enough. Still the epileptic power supply did not improve. ECN and later NEPA Football Teams did better on the football fields than their parent companies did in supplying power.

Then some people claimed that witches and wizards were tapping into the power supply for fetish purposes or were the fires at the various Christian revivals drawing from the power grid. Some of these revivals choke off major expressways for hours. Where are Nigerian lawyers or are they part of the problem? In civilized places, one lawsuit for impeding commercial activities will bring down these church outfits. The people were fed up with NEPA and renamed it, Never Expect Power Always. Another commission was inaugurated with great fanfare to cure the failings of NEPA. This new commission renamed NEPA, PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria). I wish PHCN will hold the power and prevent the churches, witches, and wizards from tapping into Nigeria’s power supply. However, PHCN held the power so tightly that it was not being distributed to anybody including the churches, witches, and wizards. It was promptly renamed the Power Hoarding Company of Nigeria – PHCN.

Yet, another Presidential Commission, the mother of all commissions, was established by law to solve the electricity supply problem once and for all. Churches, witches and wizards were part of this commission. The churches have been trying to solve the problem of poor power supply by praying. Their recommendation, the problem is the distribution of electricity and not the supply. They recommended the creation of 11 electricity distribution companies viz: Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, Benin Electricity Distribution Company, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, Jos Electricity Distribution Company, Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, Kano Electricity Distribution Company, Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, and Yola Electricity Distribution Company. A super agency, the NERC (National Electricity Regulatory Commission) was created to oversee these companies.

The eleven companies started fighting each other so much so, that the electricity supply ground to zero on Thursday, March 31, 2016 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Nigeria set a world record for zero electricity generation that may last forever. Meanwhile the real cause of the problem, power generation continues to fester in a country with solar, wind, water, gas, coal, and oil resources. Prayers will not solve the problem either. Any story without witches, wizards, prayers, and “remoting”** is non-Nigerian. May be the money misspent on running all these bogus football teams, commissions, and companies should have been plowed into power generation. Africastallestman did not, is not, and will never subscribe to such views, beliefs, or nonsense about witches and wizards. Nigeria needs to solve its problems by human and material efforts championed by good leadership.

**Remoting in Nigerian parlance means somebody casting a spell, or bewitching you, from hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles away. A superstitious Nigerian in New York can have bite marks on waking up in the morning, inflicted on him/her by a witch in Calabar by remoting. The West will pay billions for this technology but alas, it works only on Nigerians/Africans!