 It is the breakfast in Plosivia, Africa, as power and poor power supply persists in many parts of the country. The federal government has quietly removed all subsidy in the power sector, with a plan to gradually end subsidies on petrol. Meanwhile, the federal government has said that it will grow Nigeria's power generation to 11,000 megawatts in 2022, saying measures to actualizes were already on ground. Currently, the country's power generation hovers around 4,000 megawatts and 5,000. We do have Muktak Mohamed, a financial analyst, joined the conversation this morning. Muktak Mohamed, it's good to have you join us. Thank you so much. Good morning. Okay. So I'd like to share your thought. This has been a lot for Nigerians to deal with at the time when we're talking about fuel subsidy. So the question is, is it okay for us to talk about subsidizing the electricity sector when we don't even have constant power supply? Well, I think if you have power, no matter how little you have, and government is subsidizing for what you don't even have, is it not better for them to not subsidize it at all so that we know that we pay for what we have based on the measures that government has put in place. I'm not an advocate of subsidy of any kind, especially when it's not a subsidy that's going to end up bringing more revenue to the table of government to be able to intervene social interventions. But when you tell me to choose between electricity subsidy and petrol and subsidy, I rather go for electricity subsidy than petrol and subsidy because electricity subsidy is going to touch every part of the world. Every part of Nigeria, every Nigerian has been to benefit from it. So we don't do the petrol and subsidy whereby once there's Q and petrol and shortage of petrol and there's Q or there's an incident on the road, the price is just about 100 or something percent. And it's the ordinary Nigerians that you think you're subsidizing for that are resurfing from it. But when you talk about electricity subsidy, I for me, it's better to remove the subsidy in petrol and product and plunging into electricity subsidy because that we could say we are really subsidizing because it's going to touch every Nigerian equally. Compared to now that you have subsidy in the petrol and sector and you have about somebody that has been up to three to four cars enjoying subsidy every day and somebody does not even have one car. Yeah, the subsidy is supposed to be meant for him and that person is enjoying that subsidy because of scarcity of petrol and product, because of insecurity or because of wanting that is not under his control. So for me, I think it's good thing that we are beginning to look at removing something because if you don't do that, it will in turn become a monster, just like the petrol and subsidy is a monster to us now. But usually there's this argument where, for instance, now you talk about the petroleum sector and those who were saying, yes, it's okay for government to remove subsidy. But before government remove subsidy, the question would be what has government done? The refineries are not functional. So it is the same question with the power sector. Yes, we'll understand the issue that it's been privatised, not entirely, but if you say you're withdrawing subsidy, you're removing subsidy from the power sector, what is the state of the power sector in terms of generation and distribution? Well, there's no right time for anything. The right time is now. When it comes to economic policy, you don't get all the parameters right before you decide to do it because definitely at the end of the day, you have to get it right for it to continue being what it is. So I share what you're trying to say there. But then look at the petroleum subsidy. I keep using that as a use thing. We have seen a situation whereby subsidies have been paid for over the years in terms of trillions. Like this year, we're spending something about four trillion and yet it's not going to, rather it's going to worsen the life of the ordinary Nigerian and help the ordinary Nigerian. So if it's something that we need to do, I think we need to begin to act fast, we learn from your experience. It's only a food that we want to learn from our mistakes. Everybody learns from the mistake of the person before them, of the mistake they have made to become a lesson to them and they want to make sure that they don't repeat that. And I'm sure that we'll be getting that again. Because there's something in the electricity that government paid. We don't even know the exact subsidy and who are you subsidizing and what are you subsidizing for. So the same thing that is happening in the petroleum sector is about to creep into the electricity sector. whereby these things are suddenly showed in a lot of controversy because you are not able to have a particular data to tie this subsidy scheme to. So the problem that we're having in the petroleum sector is the same problem we are getting in the electricity sector. If not what's in the electricity sector because we don't even know the numbers. I mean the number of people you are paying subsidy for because according to the electricity bill, you are not supposed to pay subsidy for everybody. They are supposed to pay subsidy for people in a particular, maybe in the low income area. But how do you determine a low income area? So those are part of the strategies that are not really work or the blueprint that government are not able to come up with. What are your thoughts on the finance minister, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed. Well witnesses to the back and forth and let's call it policy somersault by this federal government. When this finance minister popped up at a function to say that the federal government was removing fuel subsidy and then that there would be sort of a give back, money shared to the poorest Nigerians to cushion the effect which was in turn going to be more than the federal government was paying for fuel subsidy. And now we had later that the president may not have said anything like that from the senate president, he said President Moriah could not have done that. And then later we had that they were not going ahead with that. And even the whole plan to give the most vulnerable or poorest Nigerians transportation, it didn't look sustainable because it was going to give this money every month. What are your thoughts on Mrs. Zainab Ahmed and the state men she puts out and the credibility of this federal government as far as that sector called finance and economy is concerned. I think you said it all. We talk about governance in Nigeria going through political summers. I mean policy summers off. And that has been one debate whether you don't have a track for investors into Nigeria because they don't have confidence in the system. They say that a government, government is supposed to be a continuous process but in Nigeria it doesn't. And again, it shows that there's no synergy where the finance minister is saying this then before you know it, the presidency is saying something. And that has been the problem with the current administration. It has been an administration that have been involved in talk with the minister says this is the presidency disputed and said this is not what we meant. Look, the subsidy scheme has been proposed by the minister who removed the subsidy was good but then you added that you want to pay some Nigerian 5,000 Naira every month for the next one year. The subsidy at that time was 3 trillion and you're going to spend 2.5 trillion paying 500 Naira to Nigeria. And when you talk about the poor, who are the poor in Nigeria? How do you determine who is the poor? What is the data that makes you to determine who is the poor? So as long as we have challenges in terms of data, we don't even know how many Nigerians we have. And I just say we are above 200 million. We don't even know how many because we lost this presidential census over 20 years ago. So we need to update our data. It's when you start working with data that some of this economics that you're trying to put from makes sense as a standard doesn't make sense. Even the current we are here that I want to pay 4 trillion for subsidy. And we have, at which price will we pay 4 trillion? If you say we are paying 4 trillion because the price of food at the particular time was $110 or $120 when it goes to $80, when it goes to $70, are we still paying the same amount of subsidy that we have paid before? So this and you cannot, of this moment Nigerians cannot maximise their opaque output of 1.8 million. We are doing 1.5 billion. So there's a lot of challenges and these challenges are structural challenges. And those are structural. And once you have the structural challenges it takes somebody to come there to want to build an institution to begin to work with them. And that's why the particular industry would have been one of the best thing that would have happened to kickstart the particular sector to attract, but they also did not have the political will to do about it. And you and I know why we don't have the political will. It's not because it will not be done. It's because it's an election year and that would be one of the three. So why did I say, so spend this policy for now, pass it back to the UN the solution to come and see how they can sort it out because you have four years to do that. So when you hear in 2023 that the finance minister is saying we just one year to go that they will be moving petrol subsidy in phases and doesn't give a timeline for that phase, you know, specific timeline. Like you said, you know, data to back it, you know, figures, you know, because finance is about numbers to show what exactly she means by phases. And what does that say? That says to you and I that they don't have our interests after the election. Once they did the whatever whatever candidate are supporting wins that election. They can decide to say, look, we are leaving so we can remove the subsidy. Let the next comment that is coming begin to deal with the crisis of subsidy removal. Remember that the same thing the previous government of President Goodluck and Village United wanted to do also at the time they were going they wanted to hide the files of petroleum product let the incoming administration come to deal with it. But the people rise up against it. But even when this incoming administration came in they were able to even increase the price. But remember that it's the only administration that has increased price more in terms of percentage in terms of percentage. They met the four at the time they came in they met where I think at that time about maybe really 70 to 80 that's about today. Yeah, we are 160 and they have been proposing 320, 400 without any sustainable data to mark up. That's the challenge. You are paying four trillion. The members of the administration at the point that they were not paying subsidy again. They were only for NFPC to call it under recovery. So they brought in a lot of names to say we are not paying subsidy. We don't believe in subsidy. You know, this is from a session before it came in the president then a presidential candidate said that there's nothing on a subsidy. That subsidy is a fraud. And then you came in there and now you are the one perpetuating the fraud. OK, so what would you say the implication is if the government says that they're removing or they have removed subsidy for in the past sector or the electricity sector, however you want to put it. What does that mean for Nigerians? They have removed it. If you are buying, if you are buying credit, you realize that the amount you used to buy before, the unit it gives to, you have to come down. They have done that already. So when the minister said that we have removed electricity source in quiet, he didn't say we will remove. It has been removed. And this is coming in a time when, you know, the nation is grappling with power challenges. You know, of course the transmission company of Nigeria recently had to come out to defend itself, to say that the report said that we are responsible for the current load shedding in the country. It's not true. We're not just generating enough electricity. We can only transmit to the distribution companies what we get from the generation companies. So is it bizarre that this is all coming in a time when we don't even have electricity? You know, a lot of parts of Nigeria are without power supplies. We speak. You don't need to even go far. A lot of places in Lagos, even very close to you there, and I'll be surprised if you two are not using generating plant there right there, you're still going to be on there. So it's right beside us there. You see, the government does not have the political will to do the right thing. And that's why we are aware we are not, government has come out to have the political way to deal with the power situation. Until we have a government that have the political way to do the power situation, to deal with the petroleum sector. And then we'll have the kind of piece that we intend to do prosperity. Because when you look at the petroleum sector, is the life wire, is the life wire, is the blood of the Nigeria economy. It's the one that generated the most revenue for the Nigeria economy. And it's one of those sectorizing in a lot of corruption. So you can see there, we are not only talking about corruption, we are talking about oil teach also in that sector. So when you look at the electricity sector, if we don't do the right thing, we end up, what is government still doing with generation? Why is government still involved in generation? Why do you privatize? If you want to privatize everything, I mentioned give it to a computer hand. Let you begin to earn revenue tax from that. After all, government is not going to legalize it. Government is going to have a share. That's all what every government all over the world does. And they are not involved in the day to day or so. What they have done, they have reduced costs. And rather what they have done, they will be getting dividend. And the people will tell you, be the one that will benefit more. So when you talk about generation, they say they have generated up to 7,000 megawatt, but they can only transmit less than 6,000 megawatt. And what is the challenge with it? The challenge is that even the GICO or the GICO, whatever they call them step, will not be able to transmit because of oscillate power equipment. So because they didn't have the technical know-how to begin to know that, look, when you buy something, you need to transform. So they need to know that. I'm really sorry. We have to let you go now. That's because we're really out of time and we have been prompted to let it go at this point in time. Thank you so much. And we're hoping that the government and everyone, stakeholders will step into the right shoes and position to take the right decision. So we can be a nation that is leaked. That's the most important thing. Thank you so much once again. Thank you, my pleasure. Well, that's the size of it. You cannot take out the importance of having, you know, talking about energy or power supply for any economy. It will really, really translate to ensuring that there's development. A lot will happen. It would make the business, running business in Niger very, very, very easy and simple. But that's the size of the conversation this morning. If you missed out on any part of it, it's all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Well, plus TV Africa and plus TV Africa lifestyle. Do subscribe to our YouTube channel. I am Messi Boko. Do you have a fantastic day? And happy birthday once again from all of our CLA team on an offer to you. Merci, my name is Kofi Bartels. Keep watching Plus TV Africa. The breakfast will return tomorrow. Good morning.