 We'll see you on the breakfast and plus TV Africa. Thank you for joining us and also thank you for staying with us. Now most businesses and homes were again left out without power supply for several hours yesterday after Niger's national grid collapsed fourth the eighth time in 2022. The electricity distribution company, the Discos at earlier in the day notify their customers of the disruption in power supply. The national grid had collapsed eight times in 2022. The last incident was in July. It collapsed once in June and twice in March and April 2022 as well. The electricity grid suffered more than 200 partial and total system collapse from January 2010 to June 2022. Niger's national grid is known for experience and disruption. It collapsed in February, May, July and August 2021. According to reports, the grid experienced 206 collapses between 2010 and 2019. Verifiable data shows that Niger witnessed 146 total collapse of the national grid and 73 partial collapse between the period. We have a guest in the studio this morning, O'Neill Lajouwamy, who is the CEO of Wavelength Integrated Power Services, Lameeta. Thank you for joining us again. I mean, it feels like we get to talk to you every other time the grid collapses. Okay, so what are your thoughts this time? It's the eighth time. Well, I think the last time I was here, I told you we're never going to see the end of this until the right things have been done. And again, it's happened again. I was a bit reluctant to just like yourself, but we have to keep talking about these things, isn't it? And I must thank you guys for at least trying to talk about real issues in the sector. Okay, so you talked about the right things being done and we can never get out of this, so what exactly are we not doing? The problem is, I mean, there are actually many problems starting from lack of investment or slow investment in the sector. There are a few things that should have been done and has not yet been done. And so therefore, there are going to be a lot of collapse. We're still going to witness some this year. I can assure you that. So I think that's the major factor. Well, I want you to begin to, I mean, you have talked about we're not doing the right thing. A few things not been done. Can you categorically tell us the things that we're not doing, the things that should be done, and the things that we're not getting right? All right, so I'll tell you something like the grids, the national grid is actually doesn't have a SCADA system. That's a supervisory control and data acquisition system that controls the systems automatically, balances the system. Right now in Nigeria, our grid is still done manually from the control center in Ushobo. So we don't even know what the problem is. I mean, the TCN doesn't know what could have tripped the grid or neither will the disco. But if you have a SCADA system, then you can have all this real-time control. That's one. Second, you should have a spinning reserve. International best practice suggests that every grid must have at least 10% spinning reserve. In Nigeria, we don't have a spinning reserve. Last time I remember, NUS was discussing procuring a spinning reserve. Now let me explain what a spinning reserve is. Spinning reserve means that you have a reserve of power generation that comes online if there's a loading balance. As of this morning, we've been able to find out what the problem is. Try yesterday a lot of people, including the power operators. It's a real issue that we're talking about. A SCADA system needs to be rightly procured right now. What is the spinning reserve? Supervisory control data acquisition system. What's that? Well, it controls the power, the grid automatically, and the manual where we do things. And it acquires data. It tells you where the load infrequency has occurred or what could have triggered the power. You can see everything on the screen. Exactly. Just like you have in Egypt. Yes. Where one man went to look at. So you're saying that we didn't know what the issues were but now we know? As of this morning, yes, we have an idea of what it is. What is it? It was a loading frequency. So there's a load imbalance in the system. Okay. There's a lot of factors that can constipate. From which part of the country? So you know who to blame? I really don't know now. That's for the time. All right. You talk about spinning reserve. What is that? A spinning reserve is a backup power, really. Like you have a generation constantly going on in the background that comes in when there's a drop in the load supply. But we don't have that at the moment in Nigeria. I mean, we've heard over the time that it's not a problem of generation. It's rather a problem of capacity to transmit the power generated. How true is that? Yeah. I mean, so that's also an issue. Like I mean, you still have some obsolete lines in the transmission. GCN accelerates and therefore without constant upgrade, you're going to keep having trips in the load supply. So that's a real issue as well. So because, I mean, you followed that through with the statistics and all of the figures that was put out right. And you're saying that we can never get out of this. Yeah. I mean, we wouldn't. And I assure you that until the right things are being done, and this is not even just me saying it. Even GCN has actually acknowledged that as far back as 2019. So without the spinning reserve, without the skater system, you're going to keep having the same thing. Even this was even by the idea of the Nigerian power in yesterday. So a lot of the players in the sector know these things. And of course, unfortunately, Nigeria is a place where we are. I mean, we have smart people that know what to do, but unfortunately, the right things are not being done at the right time. So until we have the right things done. So why are we not doing it? Is it because we're not aware of the situation? We don't understand the issue. What do you think that the problem lies here? Honestly, I had to have a deep breath. I'd really do not know why the government is not pushing on this. I don't work with the NIRC or the TCN. I know there's been a discussion around procuring of the spinning reserves, the skater systems. I do not know why it's not been procured yet. There may be real issues within the government. I don't know, maybe there's a lot of funding has already gone to the power sector. And by now we shouldn't be talking about these things. It should have been resolved. So but how come we got to the point where in 2013, we talked about privatisation. We said, we're experiencing partial privatisation because we felt like government is not efficient in managing this and so we needed the private sector. So was that really necessary? Yeah, I mean it was necessary to drive investment into the sector. I think it was privatised that. I can tell you some few discos are doing very well now. Ekeja and Eko Disco are doing quite well. And some discos have actually been taken back by the government. But I'm for privatisation to a very large extent because that way you can actually bring in more investment into the sector. But yeah, we are going to see improvement as we keep pounding the issues and trying to brainstorm the issues. These are the best things we can keep doing. And one thing also is to have the right people in places, the right people who have the knowledge to at least profile solutions to these problems. But unfortunately, Nigeria, sometimes we put square pegs in round holes. All right, so we have a situation where we're talking about power generation and power transmission. In terms of power generation, you're agreeing with those who are saying that it's not about not having enough electricity per se, but about the transmission. Three years ago in 2019, Nigeria signed an agreement with Siemens to generate an additional 11,000 MW by 2023. So that's still on board. But this year, we told the Nigeria sign an agreement with France to improve not just electricity supply, but actually to improve power transmission in the country worth about 25 million euros. That obviously would not be taking effect as soon as possible. Immediately rather, but they expect that it to happen over the years. So do you believe that we don't have any other thing to complain about? We just have to wait for that 25 million euros to be spent by the French involvement agency in the Nigerian government to expand the transmission. Yeah, I mean that figure is very conservative. That's privatisation and no privatisation. Yeah, 25 million euros is quite conservative. I think we need way more than that. But at least that should help to a very large extent. But we do the transmission and the generation of Nigeria needs way more than that. But of course, yeah, we have only have to wait for now. You have talked about having investment, I mean the essence of privatisation at the end of the day. But shouldn't this investment or having the private sector come in cater for the current issues that we're faced with? Yeah. While we still experience it. Yeah, just like you just mentioned, I mean the fund that we're getting in now from France and the investment from Germany is to actually boost and kind of make the grid more robust. Some part is going to generation and into transmission. So yeah, that's what you see in privatisation. It's not going into the government pockets directly. It's going to be invested into this private sector of driven companies. So I mean, I'm really worried because we're talking about the past sector here and the past sector is very critical for the development of a country. Very correct. It cuts across everything. I think that if we solve the power issues, maybe we will become more productive as a country. But do you think that we really identified the issue? Because if we decided to put privatisation as a solution, we think that we needed the private sector to come in. Was that really the right thing to do? Or rather think about the fact that we needed a robust kind of system. Maybe privatisation wouldn't have been the thing at the foreign border. Well, I mean solving a problem, you have to try different things sometimes, right? Privatisation is one of the ways that we could have resolved this and it's the way the government thought it was right to do this. I think it should work. Privatisation works if it's done correctly. If the players in the sector are pulling their weights and doing the right thing, unfortunately we all know the story of privatisation. Here we are. Some have been taken back, like I have really said. We saw it in courts and here and there. So yeah, some of them will, some of the companies are still doing very well and it really picked up themselves. All right, so right now we've seen sort of a, people have said we have an optic in the power supply in the country. Some people have said, you know, the experience isn't better, improve power supply. Some have given reasons about this saying it's because of the rainfall. Yeah. Is this really true? Yes, correct. I mean the Nigerian power sector is largely driven by the gas and hydro power. So when we have a high rainfall, the dams are filled and the hydro power is working at an optimal level. Amazing. We have gas supply as well and if we have gas, the power is on. But unfortunately, some of also this national grid collapse occur due to gas shortage, which was I think was the last one I was here and I was the reason. But this time around it's a different reason. So some people said the ones that started that came out were prominent last year that it was due to the diesel, you know, price increase because of diesel and that those who were in charge of some aspect of the generation were going behind to actually not do what they were connecting the money for, were using gigantic generators powered by diesel to generate the power and when the cost went up it affected the ability to do that. It was off the books, you know, it wasn't meant to be and that's why you had initial grid collapses. Is that true, do you know anything? I don't have that information, but yeah, I don't have that information at all. Thank you. Well, so moving forward now and I mean some people have said that, you know, with the issue of collection, so you have generation transmission at the end of the day. There's also another quest where people are not paying for, you know, the services that they probably enjoy and on the front, but not the government is responsible. When I said the government, you have government agencies have been pointed at different times of not, you know, leaving up to her expectation. We also have issues of those who were supplying to, I mean outside of Nigeria, owing debts and all of that. So how do we, you know, resolve all of these issues to ensure that the private sector, I mean the power sector thrives and that's where she should get to? I think you're actually, you're very correct. There's a real insolvency issue in the power sector. That's another topic and we can talk about it. I won't get out of here today. We've had counteracquisitions, the military, the power sector tells owing the discourse and the discourse owing the TCN, TCN and the generation companies owing the gas companies. So it's really a quagmire we find ourselves in and this is a real time issue. Does it affect, you know, the collapse of the national? It does affect, it does affect because if you're not paying your gas charges, the gas operator can decide not to supply and then they have inefficiency in their operations. It does, it's a ripple effect really. So does this therefore not, you know, tell us that it's not really a problem of privatization? Okay, we look, yeah, yeah, because we look at, from the unbundling of PHED, oh sorry, of PHCN. So the PHED gave me a lot of woes. That's why I had to go back there. From the days of the unbundling of PHCN. The distribution companies are private companies and most of them are performing abysmally. Yeah, I agree. Abysmally. Most of them. Um, the gas companies are private owned. You know, you look at Alpha and Power Plant, all these companies around, so all the generation companies, you know, are privately owned. What you have is the Transmission Company of Nigeria, which is, though it's run like a company, you know, limited-library company, but it's the CEOs that are here. So this is probably because of national security. Yeah. You know, because of national security. Is this, so is it really a problem of privatization? With the transmission companies and the case study? Yeah, I mean, I think you're trying to let me, let me put me on the spot right here. Well, yeah, I've said this numerous times. The proposition at the beginning was actually faulty. We all know that. Can we get into the process of all this? Yeah, I said this about 2013 and it's, we can see where we are now. And you truly, quite a number of them have performed abysmal. They've been taking back. So privatization, could it have been a solution? It could have been a solution, but did it play out right? It didn't play out right. Was it done rightly? It wasn't done rightly, and that's why we're here. So maybe we'll start to have to look at it all over again and see where we are. Look at privatization all over again. I mean, some of the companies, the process, some of the companies have been taken back. No, not because, I mean, from your conversation, we're really having, and I like the fact that we're keeping it very real. You know, we're talking about practical issues here. So if, you know, at once upon a time, we thought that we needed the private sector to come in. We needed investment and all of that. And now we're having issues where national, the national grid is collapsing. Shouldn't privatization, you know, the fact that we had privatized, this would have actually also factored in the issues that we're facing right now. We shouldn't have been here. So if privatization was the solution, then privatization should have catered for some of the issues that you have mentioned, that we don't have robust equipment, you know, and what have you. And that's why we're having the national grid that's collapsing. It's one on the other hand, the issue that we're not even generating, you know, enough. We're not generating to the capacity. I mean, the capacity that, you know, the power plants are meant to generate. We're not living up to expectation. It's also another issue. So I'm wondering why privatization had not solved these problems, because these problems are here. So should we have said that privatization is the solution? Why did we, you know, just move on to say, hey, we needed to privatize the sector when we have these other issues? Yeah, I think for me, I still stand on where, like, privatization is one way to solve problems of insolvency and drive investments in real sectors. As you can see in Western world, most of the power sectors, I mean, the power sector is privatized. Like, for example, the United Kingdom is privatized, fully privatized, and the U.S. and other entities, they won't stay... So do we need a total privatization of the sector? I totally agree with you, yes. Like, the TCN, for example, is still not privatized. It's still owned by government. So, and you can't have that. And that's the real issue now. It's not even a disco. It's not even somebody disco performing well. The discos, they have to rely on the TCN to have their supply, and therefore it's a real issue. Privatization, was it done rightly? That's another question. So we're looking at probably making a case for... Because of course, the Federal Government, since 2005, with the power sector reforms, having privatized the distribution assets and the generation. You are saying, making a case for, sort of, maybe, decentralization of the grid? Yes, yes. Total decentralization of the grid. I've been an advocate for that, and I'm still, I am still a full advocate of that. There are a lot of... There are some areas in Nigeria right now, in June, 24 hours of power. Yeah, I think that he is part of... We are communities, I'm talking about we are communities with the decentralized out of the grid, they have their own grid controlled by renewable energy systems. So, off-grid systems? Yeah, off-grid systems, yeah, yeah. That takes me to the point that the Federal Government recently gave 37 firms licenses to produce power, yes. So, do you think these are sort of the initiatives that will help the situation? Yeah. That's bypassing the national grid. Yes. A classic example is, for instance, when some state governments were not aware of how, or being oblivious, seemingly, to how the power sector is structured in terms of what is on the exclusive list and the recurrent, or concurrent list, went ahead to, again, the power projects. Yeah. For instance, River State about investing in the AFAM power projects. Yes. And only to say, oh, we cannot give ourselves power. It has to now move from Podakot to the national grid, somewhere in Niger, I don't know where it is, to now go around. To Oshobu. Yes. So, you are saying that the state should be allowed to produce the power and then share it around to themselves? Yeah, yeah. I think that is happening now as well. That's happening now? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Looking into it, yeah. Thank you. We need to go now. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kofi. Thank you. Thank you. Lajwomi for being on the show. We have been speaking with him, he's the CEO of Wavelength Integrated Power Services Limiter. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate your time. I really don't know if we're ever going to get to the end of always having to talk about the collapse of the national grid. We'll have a few more months just before 2023. Mainly just maybe. We might also have another collapse in October and the remaining parts of 2022. But fingers crossed. And we hope that relevant quarters are taking the right action and are stepping up to ensuring that the power sector is improved totally. Well, that's the size of our conversation on the breakfast. If you missed out on any parts of it, it will be great and all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. What plus TV Africa and plus TV Africa lifestyle. My name is Messi Boko and thanks for watching. And my name is Kofi Bartels. Thank you very much for your time. We'll return tomorrow.