 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa and now to take a first major conversation this morning looking at the situation in the electricity sector in Nigeria. Now the indications of the nation's electricity supply crisis might worsen from today, Wednesday, as organized labor has directed workers in the power sector to down tools and commence an indefinite strike over pending labor issues with the transmission company of Nigeria. Now under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUE, as superior to the strike, the agreed workers are scheduled to picket the Abuja National headquarters of the transmission company of Nigeria. Indeed, that activity happened yesterday. In a circular by the general secretary of the Union, Joe Agero, titled Call for Action, sent to senior assistant general secretaries and zone organizing secretaries dated August 15, 2022. The union directed them to secure or ensure total compliance. This is quite a dire situation and of course this adds to the ongoing crisis in the power sector of Nigeria. George Itomi is a lawyer and chairman West Power and gas limiters is a guest on this first discussion on the breakfast right here in plus TV Africa. Mr. Itomi, good morning to you. Thank you very much for your time. Good morning and how are you this morning? Very, very well and I hope you are too. What are the issues here as far as this union is concerned with the transmission company of Nigeria? It's quite a dire situation. Do you think this is something that should go ahead such a strike given the situation of power supply in the country as we speak? Some would say this is going to plunge Nigeria further into more darkness. Is this the way to go as far as the unions are concerned? I honestly pray that they don't go ahead with the threats to shut down the entire electricity supply to the nation because like you correctly said, it's going to put us in dire straits. In the last few weeks, we've been enjoying what you might call improved power supply and this is going to be steady. And the worst thing that can happen to the electricity industry is for total shutdown because by the time you begin to reboot and get power supply back, it's going to take you ages. So this is we just really and honestly pray that you don't go through with the threats. Secondly, we understand that these are mainly labor related issues on three fronts. One regards the circular sense from the Office of the Head of Service regarding what the term is, stigmatization of workers barring them from taking up employment in any area in the power sector. Second is the issue to do with promotions within the TCN. And then the third one is what they call failure to honor obligations arising from the original privatization exercise by the market operator, as we call them. So as you can see, the three issues are labor related issues to be dealt with by different agencies of either government or its power status. But now we see all of them lumped together as it means of bringing about pressure on the part of government to do something about it. The truth also is that if you listen to labor, these issues are not new. They've been tabled. There have been several interventions, even by the legislature and different people, agreements are reached, but they're never honored. And recently, I think the TCN wrote to them to say, Oh, they suspended the vexed promotion exercises. And they're hoping also that they can be given two weeks to address the other issues. Labor's concern is you made the same promise in 2019. And three years after, you're still asking for two weeks. And good back goes back and forth. But what this speaks to, in my mind, is the weakness in the structure we have in the entire electricity value chain. As you can tell, if there is a shutdown, it will affect both generation and distribution. Each of these have been privatized. And then the middleman, which is the TCN is the one that's having these problems. So you can imagine the effect it will be on private sector operators that their facilities have been shut down on the instructions of a union that deals lightly with some malfeasance from the part of government. It's such a weak link in the entire value chain. I'm not going into the merits or the demerits of what they're saying. But I think we should understand that if this goes through the ability of the discourse, for example, to meet with the market obligations will be severely impaired. Same thing with the distribution and with the generating companies. We have written to the regulator asking earnestly for their intervention so that this does not go ahead. Because if we lose the momentum that we have now, it would be a major setback. And without exaggeration, it's going to throw us at least six months back. Most of the gains we've made, which has been the steady improvements in our facilities, modernizing them and generally applying the best practices to improve on the system will be greatly impaired. If you recall, July 1st, the midterm electricity market kicked off from the temporary electricity market. This is the partial activation of all the contracts in the sector, which means that if there's an intervening event like a strike, it could lead to what you might call force measure. However, you look at it, it's not good. So we can only plead for the government to address the workers' issues very quickly, but more importantly, plead with the electricity union not to go through with the strike. Well, George Atumi, let's also look at this in this other light. I think that you have also mentioned it, but because a lot of persons will probably think that the workers are actually backing a strike because of the capacity or the condition in terms of executing or implementing. But that's not the case. The case here is with the welfare of the people and implementation. It's almost the same thing with us. You get into an agreement with government in 2009, and that has not been implemented or respected. And we're talking about that in 2022, the same thing. They are talking about welfare, some sort of agreement that was entered into in 2019 and went 2022. Why is this a pattern? Because it's a pattern. Why is this a pattern? An agreement being entered, you know, one or two, and it's not been respected because it's not that they're asking, you know, that the power condition be improved, but they're asking about, you know, their welfare and what has not been sorted out, what has due them that has not been paid. So what has this become, you know, a pattern? It has become, you know, a trend for us in Nigeria with agencies or with bodies that are suddenly responsibility of providing certain services, and then they fail at the end of the day because on the other hand, agreements have not been respected. I'm honestly not defending the government in this regard. If you enter into an agreement, at least you can do so on all the agreements. So there's absolutely nothing I see that should justify the government not honouring its agreements. The only concern that I have is that the method chosen, which is the threat to shut down the entire electricity value chain will do more tremendous harm to citizens than Labour said may even have intended. You can imagine if electricity is shut down now from residents to offices, to factories, to whatever. Maybe to be, you cannot begin to calculate the monetary loss, not to talk about going back to the generator days, inhaling fumes, the effect on the health and well-being. So yeah, you are right. That government should not backtrack on its obligations or share its responsibility. But Labour too should be very considerate of the very Nigerian citizens who already sympathise with them because, like you said, these are welfare issues and they should be dealt with. But don't punish the very citizens from whom you are pleading for understanding. There must be other ways you can deal with it. I do not support entering into agreements and just walking away. All right. Let's look at other issues regarding this. I mean, this is clearly, like you said, a Libyan issue. Nothing to do with any of the main, the core, you know, activities of the transmission company of Nigeria. In the midst of this, we have the workers who were there in the days of PHCN. And now PHCN is the successor of NEPA. So these are the people who were being told that the issues in the sector from the office of head of service was on the stigmatisation of the defunct PHCN staff, sorry, payment of entitlement of ex-PHCN staff by the market operator. So we see that there is sort of a connection still with the PHCN staff and the PCNDs. We look at the fact that they are saying that some of them who have NEPA training certificates have not been promoted. You know, some of the workers in the transmission company of Nigeria who have NEPA training certificates have not been promoted. Then also, the PCN had organised a promotion interview for some of the staff who are meant to go to another level. And the unionists are not having it. They don't want the promotion interview because they're saying it goes against the laws. So it seems, and it looks like there seems to be an attempt to maybe, would you say, move forward with things? And this is what it seems the PCN is doing. I mean, is it wrong to have a promotion interview? One may be able to read into what the PCN is trying to do with this promotion interview. So what do you say to this? You know, the PCN recently had it all appointed. And their mandate is to modernise the PCN. And by the way, you know the politician is composed of three major business units or component technical units. You have the ISP. This is the independent systems operator, the ISO. Then you have the MO, the market operator. And then you have the transmission. That's the one that actually owns all the facilities that they have, the transmission support company. Now, today they're all housed under the PCN. But if we are going to go into a market-oriented electricity industry, if you're going to attract investors to the sectors, you must get these component parts aggregated and let them run the way they run internationally so that investors can come and see that there is transparency in the way these things are done. So this is the mandate of the board. And that's what the board is set about doing. But as you can see, anytime you have anything like this, it's going to impact on workers who are there. That would be just meant for position for promotions. They want to be part of it. For whatever reason, whoever is in charge doesn't want them to be part of it. It's going to bring about friction. This friction is not going to go away. It's not going to be addressed in one day. And that's why I said I'm not going to go into the merits or the demerits. The fact is that there are welfare issues. There are operational issues. If this whole talk was about what are we going to do to bring TCN up to modernity, bring it up to performance in a privatized environment, I don't understand. But we're still dealing with issues to do with you want to promote your sets of the book and not participate. What are you saying is that the new TCN board has a mandate to modernize the company and the transmission aspect of Nigeria's power sector. If this is what you're saying, it makes it clearer to us. Because I just want to go back to a few things that Joe Ageru said. He said that 67 managers going to senior manager are holders of NEPA training certificates. Now, these are K1 to K5 and in his words, unjustifiably not invited for the 2021 promotion exercise. And it means that these are people who have been there for NEPA days, holders of NEPA training certificates. I don't know how that sounds in your ear. 196 system operators going from senior managers to principal managers who pass the interview but are yet to be promoted out of the 262. And they're now being invited for promotion interview. These are people who also were from the defunct power holding company of Nigeria. Now, he also says that the TCN implementation of a strange memo dated May 29, 2020 on the re-engagement of severed defunct PHCN staff in public service after payment of severance pay. So these are issues and it seems like like you're saying it's a battle between modernizing the TCN and satisfying the desires of a group of people who've been there from NEPA days. Now, I have interacted with officials of the part of the distribution company in an area I lived in and some of them are relics of the NEPA days, so to use that word. They are staff of the NEPA days, we know them from NEPA days. So isn't this going to drag Nigeria's electricity sector pasca back if you have people like this still involved in calling the shots? Well, you know, you're dealing with human beings, you're dealing with welfare, you're dealing with the livelihoods, you're dealing with families, the support. So no matter how strong your desire is to modernize, even if you're going to discard them, you must be done in in manner. I don't even like to use what discard because if they're coming from the old PHCN NEPA days, I'm sure they are slowly advancing towards retirement. So there's a way you can package them so they don't feel unappreciated or disgraced or shortchanged. That can be managed. It may not make your operations change as rapidly as you would want to, but you're dealing with the human element. And those of us who took over the distribution companies were dealing with that problem and we get complaints very often from consumers. Just what you are describing about how these guys are not keeping step with what is going on. What we do, we keep having workshops, retraining, reorientation, and then as we do so we're injecting new people, new blood, new methods, modern applications and stuff. It happened with the banking sector. It happened with telecommunications. You can't totally and entirely run away. You're dealing with human issues, but you must strike that balance between the desire to accommodate people who are dragging the system and then also meeting with your targets. The distribution companies have monthly targets they might meet and if you don't meet it you have a deduction from your earnings and that is a real deal. So if I have that kind of a pressure then please let me be free to employ people and apply the tools that will enable me to meet that market. Labor Union is there to protect its workers and don't forget when you say labor, labor, it's the same workers. It's the same people who answer you yes sign the money and the ones who knock you out once a strike is called out. So what we do is mainly let them just know what that striking should always be. It should be absolutely, absolutely last person, especially with a critical industry like electricity. If this we are going to end with the issues being addressed I can understand but how are the millions of Nigerians who would lose revenue, who would lose health, who would lose, how are they going to recover? They are Nigerians who hold their title to electricity which they pay for so we too also appeal to them. Yes, while you are pursuing your legitimate demands you must look this thing from a more holistic point of view and strike a balance between your desire to see justice done to your workers and your overarching obligation to ensure that Nigerians their well-being is also protected. All right but let's also look at the fact that you know the reports by the TCN, you know the power generation had dropped by 6.4 percent you know we're looking at 3675 megawatts. What difference does he make that the workers are going on strike? I mean this is not a sound insensitive to the Akan sense but you know it's one on the same thing we have always been in darkness because you can't give what you don't have so what difference is there? I don't agree with that kind of thinking. We cannot say because power generation has dropped it makes no business shut down the system. That should not be the thought process whatsoever it's it's a continuous and sustained effort to improve the electricity value chain and the modest gains we make should not be sacrificed on the altar of a strike and it makes absolutely no difference. There's so many other reasons why power generation can't drop it could be due to lack of gas it could be to technical issues but to label to be the reason over the deliberate shutdown is a totally different kind of approach and I don't support that. All right thank you very much. Judge Tomi, lawyer and chairman West Park and Gaston tell him show and another day we'll have you over to talk about the distribution side of the power sector a lot going on there but we're very grateful for your time and your expert insight into the issues in the industry this morning. Thank you. Thank you. All right time to move on when we return we talk some more we have more discussions ahead of course Merci. Students with entrepreneurial skills will grow the economy. And not who the economy will grow. Exactly. So Merci will tell us some more about that when we come back from the break and we'll have some analysis regarding this beastiness.