Issues
Need To Diversify Nigeria’s Energy Sources
The Minister of Science
and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, recently reinstated the need for Nigeria to diversify its source of energy needs before meaningful industrialization can be realised. Onu, who said this while opening a two-day national technical validation workshop on “Sustainable Energy for All Action Plan” in Abuja, stated that it had become urgent for the nation to diversify its sources of energy so that if one source had a problem, the other could make up for it.
He explained why the nation could neither rely on gas nor hydro-energy, pointing out that “the geographical location of Nigeria in the tropics gives us great advantage in utilizing solar energy and also wind energy. We will also look at other renewable sources of energy.”
While noting that virtually all the developed and emerging countries, including the United States of America, China, Germany and Russia, rely heavily on coal for electricity generation, Onu charged the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) and other research institutes within the ministry to conduct research to see how coal fire plant can be made more friendly to the environment.
Indeed, there is the need for a paradigm shift in technology in tackling the challenges affecting all sectors of Nigeria’s economy, especially the power or energy sector. The shift has become more compelling with the dwindling resources and increasing need for social amenities and provision of infrastructure for sustainable development.
The country since its existence decades ago, has not lived up to its appellation as the giant of Africa and one of the world’s acclaimed largest economies. A new approach will help the country to meet the needs of the people. The challenge of governance is basically meeting the needs of the people, which is dynamic. The challenges of today are different from those that were faced decades ago. Today, Nigeria with a population of over 160 million, no doubt, comes with peculiar challenges that affect all sectors of the country’s economy. The tradition of excellence in governance means evolving new ideas and the application of new strategies to solve new and evolving challenges for efficiency.
The present administration must gear efforts towards meeting the energy demands and expectations of the people. This can be done by re-examining the existing technology to suit the economy and think ahead on what should be considered when planning. There is the urgent need to proffer solutions to resolve the challenges affecting the attainment of excellent power supply. The main objective of the Federal Ministries of Science and Technology, Power and Energy and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), including the DISCOs, should be to deliberate on issues and challenges bothering on the implications of energy and power gridlock.
The problem of low generation of power supply and sometimes disconnection from the national grid across the country has adversely affected economic activities, including collapse of many industries. In fact, the worsening state of the countries’ power sector calls for urgent diversification of energy source. Several efforts have been made by Federal and State governments, including oil producing states to improve electricity supply in this country, but nothing tangible has come out.
Besides corruption, lack of power supply has plunged the country into further hardship. Nigerians had thought that with the Power Reform Act and the unbundling of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), they would begin to see a relief with regard to power supply but unfortunately it is not so. It is high time the Federal Government took a critical look at the activities of the DISCOS and what is preventing Nigerians from benefiting from the unbundling of the PHCN.
It would be recalled that the Senate late last year set up an ad hoc committee headed by Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC Borno North) to take a look at irregularities in the power sector. The committee was mandated to carry out a holistic investigation into the management of funds appropriated to the power sector since 1999 and the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). The committee was given four weeks within which to conclude and submit its report. The TCN has for a long time proved its inability to provide continuous and uninterrupted power supply to every part of the country, just as the private DISCOs are a bundle of disappointment to Nigerians.
Based on this backdrop, it is pertinent that a new approach should be adopted as prescribed by the science and technology minister. The suggestion is apt in view of the hardship which lack of power supply has caused Nigerians. The problem of power in Nigeria was on before 1999 and it is surprising that up till today, the power sector is still grappling with insufficient supply.
Throughout the seventies, industrialized countries lived with a dual threat hanging on them. There was reduction of raw materials and energy dependence on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel. In 1973 in particular, it was reckoned that world oil reserves were to start running out in a little over twenty years. Consequently, and in view of the sharp increase forecast in the relative oil prices, a substantial boost was declared in that decade to the development of energy sources which were alternative to hydrocarbons, preferably renewable and indigenous, and which could help to reduce dependence on other sources. Now it seems certain that there are plenty of hydrocarbons available and industrialized countries have access to cheap energy resources, so much so that many believe that energy availability is no longer a problem, apart from critical situations that may arise due to financial difficulties and market mechanisms.
However, there is fear of shortage of energy sources which is giving way to concern about the growing environmental impact of human activities, in which the production and the use of energy play a major part. This shortage is a result of emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly Co2.
In 1991, Nigeria was signatory to the Rio Conference which agreed to a convention on climate change (effective from March 1994), which obliges each signatory to stabilize its greenhouse gas emissions by 2000 and reduce them in the years that follow. Since then, as a result, action has been concentrated on the energy sector which produces 60-70 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions, especially on improving efficiency and substituting fossil fuels. The need to promote renewable energy sources, therefore, has become very topical now.
So, Nigeria needs to take advantage of the trend since its industrial development has suffered a setback due to low power density, particularly now that the price of oil has become competitive in the extreme. It is recommended that the country shifts to photovoltaics (PV), an energy with zero pollution that enables solar radiation to be converted directly into electricity. The energy has no form of pollution, not even noise and there are no moving parts. This is a unique situation as far as renewable energy sources are concerned. The extremely flexible modular nature of Photovoltaic systems enables the energy to be exploited on a wide-scale, producing locally all the energy required and thus making it possible, at least in principle, to ease the economic, logistic and environmental problems connected both with the transport of fuels and with the transmission and distribution of the energy produced. The use of PV implies the direct involvement of the final users, encouraging local control of the resources and their environmental impact.
Although PV technology is not competitive in economic terms, the cost per Kwh is higher than that of conventional sources, in the case of power plants connected to the general network. Photovoltaics carries the most prestige in terms of renewable energy sources with technology on a par with the best information technology. Since 1977, the cost of PV modules has gone down and the efficiency of individual cells has also increased substantially with improved overall performance. The costs of using photovoltaics are competitive for specific applications in isolated places, including for example, telecommunications, cathodic protection, professional signaling systems, data receiving and transmission stations and, in more general terms, supplies to individual users in remote areas for electricity supply, water pumping, refrigeration, and so on.
Moving into this system will greatly support or help the electricity networks of the country and enhance power supply and industrial growth. The application of the PV in Europe has provided a wide-scale power generation and it is also used by Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy etc. The advantages of renewable energy sources are numerous and they help in meeting the people’s total energy demand and reduce Co2 emissions. The demographic growth of Nigeria calls for an adequate response in terms of energy in order to meet the development requirements, especially now that the country is in need of increased social and economic progress to quell the growing state of unrest. So, as far as the energy problem is concerned, the solution lies in the possibility for Nigeria to have access to wide range of modern energy sources, as well as to the relevant management technologies, so that it can exploit locally, independently and correctly the available resources which are available.
Shedie Okpara
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
