"PUT ON THE GENERATOR"

"PUT ON THE GENERATOR"

My older sister and I have a couple of things in common which include our love for sports, reading novels and a kind of addiction to always having a bottle of the branded PZ product "ROBB" handy. Her passion for soccer may have waned over the past few years but she has developed more than keen interests in formula one and horse racing. 

I remember the night Manchester United overcame a one goal deficit in the final minutes of a champions league final against Bayern Munich in 1999. I remember it because I did not actually watch the game live on TV but got the details from my sister who had gone to a neighbor's flat to watch the game. There was no electricity that night and coupled with the relative lack of access to cable; my dad decided not to allow me intrude our neighbour's place with my sister.

It was normal for people in the early 90s to barge into the homes of neighbours and friends to watch episodes of their favorite  weekly Mexican or Brazilian series whenever power cuts occurred. It was also common for children and even adults in the 80s and 90s to scream "Up NEPA" whenever electricity was restored. There were only a few people who utilized generators to augment whatever supply of electricity they got but these numbers increased gradually due to the unreliability and inconsistency of the distribution company. My parents eventually succumbed to the need for a generator in 2005 just before my sister's wedding and we have not looked back ever since.

Responsibility for the diminishing productivity of the electricity authority could have been readily placed at the doorsteps of successive military regimes. In 1999, the Abdulsalam Abubakar government stepped aside and Olusegun Obasanjo was handed the reigns. He seemed to say the right things at the time like promising that power outage would be long gone from the vocabulary of Nigerians by 2003 leaving many Nigerians in ecstasy. It has been proven that he actually ploughed some billions into a power project which yielded no result. 2003 vanished and by 2006 he was wrestling and scheming for an unconstitutional third term. I want to believe that his prison to palace Mandela-esque experience may have caused him to believe he was in the same realm as the South African who is loved till eternity by his people.

The next phase in our power project was embedded in a mind boggling 7 point agenda. There have been many name changes, bundlings and unbundlings of the power sector since 2007 without any significant increase in the generated megawatts of electricity despite the additional huge billions flushed down that sewage pipe just like it happened under Obasanjo.

I watched a video clip of a South African parliamentary sitting where an aggrieved female member vented her anger at the "corrupt" dealings of the sitting president and his associates in a power generation project which is poised to add about 20,000 MW to the RSA grid. She was upset that the financial conditions were designed to favor Jacob Zuma, his relatives and close associates to the detriment of the nation and locals in the region where it was set to be established. She unapologetically continued to call Mr Zuma a thief despite warnings to withdraw the word or be thrown out. It was quite a hilarious clip but seriously, would anyone call Goodluck Jonathan a thief if he arranged a deal in 2010 that would have generated 20,000MW by the end of 2014? Would Nigerians have been even a bit bothered if Stella Oduah bought an armoured tank or if madam Alison had a space shuttle or if Mama Bipi spent everyday in Germany doing manicures and pedicures.

I got home this evening and opened the door for my three and a half year old son to walk in. He stepped into the darkness and said with a sad tone; "there is no light again". A few minutes later he said; "daddy put on the generator". He needed to see what he was going to draw in addition to his Mickey mouse sketch he had showed me earlier. 

I know some folks will say that the APC and PDP are in no way different because of certain  ex-members of the PDP who are now buddies with the opposition. I will always ask them to shelve their skepticism  and return when they can prove to me that the likes of Buhari, Osinbajo, Fashola, Aregbesola and many others were once part of the PDP which has wasted nearly 16years of our time and resources without making Nigeria appear like a refuse dump from the sky at night.

May our children cease from shouting  "up nepa" and getting tormented by the unending noise from generators.

joa

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