Interestingly, while Nigerians are yet to enjoy a stable and meaningful supply of electricity, the country currently exports power to some neighbouring countries, especially Benin, Niger and Togo. Nigeria
by the then colonial administrators, many probably, did envisaged that the country’s power sector would end up as an albatross. But this, indeed, is a mild description of what this vital sector has become, as it is currently an embodiment of what is called ‘all motion, no movement.’ Despite successive administrations’ projections, pledges and huge amount ploughed into the sector, there is practically nothing to show for it.
Considered the river of West Africa, River Niger is about 4,180km, with drainage basin of 2,117,700 km2. And aside the natural resources in it, River Niger also services the power and agricultural sectors. Starting from the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea, River Niger runs in a crescent through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
TCN’s Edmund Eje, who heads Market Operator , told The Guardian that the new business model, ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ has been deployed in serving the countries, instead of a historic agreement, where the supply was treated as a diplomatic pact. Shehu said: “The actual cost of electricity generated between 2018 and 2019 by all the electricity generation companies in Nigeria was about N1.2tr . Over 90 per cent of the electricity generated was distributed and consumed by customers across the 11 electricity distribution companies in the country.
Statistics obtained from the GenCos showed that since the power sector was handed over to private owners, the average distribution capacity in the country has stagnated at around 4000MW, though available generation capacity went from about 4000MW in 2013 to above 7000MW in 2019. There have been comments by stakeholders in the power sector suggesting that challenges confronting Nigeria’s power sector are mainly in providing or upgrading the infrastructure that will wheel electricity from generating companies to homes.
For export potential to work, Ogaji said: “We need to segregate the market into two: MYTO regulated and bilateral. Since the MYTO is based on 4000MW, the difference should be liberated from NBET and sold through bilateral. This could be off-taken by international or local customers, who are able to meet the bilateral requirements.”
In his view, one of the major issues plaguing the Nigeria electricity sector has to do with receivable collection, due to the largely social interpretation of power supply locally. He said international supply must be strict business transaction and adoption of various liquidity management schemes, such as prepaid supply, letters of credit, and other cash management schemes.
The NAEE President explained that instead of buying into the commercial outlook, which makes it better to sell energy to countries, where generation companies could easily cash out, there was need to make the country’s energy sector attractive to investors.
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