 Welcome back to the Breakfast and Plus TV Africa. Nigeria has a power generating capacity of no more than 13,000 MW, but we've only managed a peak power generation of less than half of that. At the same time, there are many problems with the power value chain, ranging from poor mitering, non-cost reflective tariffs, rotten transmission facilities and low coverage. This morning, public affairs analyst Nika Goulay is joining us from the United Kingdom to take a look at the economic cost of all of this. Good morning, Mr. Goulay. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us. A couple of weeks ago, I think a couple of days ago actually, sometime on the 5th of May, invest entrepreneur and, of course, head of Transcop Nigeria, Tony Lumilu was quoted as saying that Nigeria needs as much as 100,000 MW of electricity to have a functional economy. We're currently dealing with less than 5,000 MW. How much damage is this doing and causing to the prospects of a better economy for Nigeria? Thank you very much for that question. The truth of the matter is that this is the singular mitigating factor against Nigeria's economic growth. We have had governments in the past from the military era, in fact, from since Nigeria's independence to date, and governments have taken their eyes off this ball. So you will see governments coming with economic agenda. We have had all the visions, vision 2020, vision whatever. All these things have not worked because we have left the elephant in the room unattended to. And that elephant in the room is electricity supply. If you don't give an economy enough electricity supply, there is nothing you can do to that economy that is going to grow. Your efforts are going to be in vain because the quantum of power that an economy gets is what determines how well that economy is going to do. If the economy is like blood to the human body or any animal body, if the body does not have enough blood, it doesn't matter what you are doing to that body. You can be feeding that body. You can be washing that body. You can be putting all sorts of expensive designer clothes on top of that body. That body is not going to do well. And that is Nigeria's singular problem. Now this is the issue here. The issue here is this. You have quoted Tony Elumelu who himself is a player in the power sector because he has investments in the generating side of the business. He mentioned 100,000 megawatts. I think he mentioned that in good faith and in terms of the minimum that we need to even take off. And he mentioned 100,000 megawatts because he knows that we are at about 4,000 megawatts. So we need at least 96,000 megawatts more to get to that point within the possible economic means like our investment capacity and everything. Otherwise, the global standard for electricity generation is 1,000 megawatts per one million people. So as Nigeria has a population of 200 million people, our ID power requirement to carry our economy is 200,000 megawatts and we are doing 4,000 megawatts. So Nigeria has an electricity deficit of 196,000 megawatts. No economy in the world is going to do well. Now the strange thing here is this. We have the Presidential Economic Advisory Committee or council. This council meets regularly and then they brief Mr. President. The last meeting of this council happened a few weeks ago and I read the document that was published after the council briefed Mr. President and strangely and inexplicably electricity was not even mentioned in that document. The word electricity comes only once in the document and it came because the council recommended to Mr. President that the PRB, which is the petroleum industry bill, should have only one regulator just as the electricity sector has one regulator in NERC. That was the only time electricity mentioned. And if you look at the key issues that this council discussed for which they table before Mr. President, adequate supply of electricity, we solved them all. So the council is dealing with the symptoms and is leaving the cause of the symptoms unattended to. I can give you a further breakdown of the high level issues that the council discussed. They talked about COVID, they talked about inflation rates, they talked about unemployment rates, and then they talked about our external reserves, and then they talked about the rising cost of food, and then the council is sticking with this power issue. Yes, we appreciate that you've given us a sense of just how much power requirement is important for our economy to thrive. Looking at the power deficits, we know that Nigeria is one of the most underpowered nations of the world. Over 80 million people in Nigeria lack access to power supply. So I want you to give us a sense of what this power deficit is costing us in terms of the economy, greenhouse gas emissions, and all of that. So this power deficit is what is the need on the neck of Nigeria's economy. And if I just tell you, let me just launch the point about what engaged the attention of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. Now for instance, engage their attention. But if our economy does not have enough power, it's not going to produce enough, and it is lack of adequate production that leads to inflation, because inflation is when money is just too few goods. So if you increase output, then inflation will be quoted. The mentioned unemployment is the same way. If you sufficiently power the economy and the factories are back, then they are going to employ people. So power we solve unemployment issue, they mentioned the external reserves. Our external reserves are dwindling wide because we are importing. We are using it to subsidize the exchange rate for people to import. But if we give the nation enough power supply, there will be no need to import again. The car assembly plants will be back. All the agricultural processing factories will be back. And we now be producing what we are consuming. And so we will not have a need for the USD. And that will take care of that. Now the Presidential Economic Advisory Committee put three matters on the table of Mr. President. They required urgent attention, and there were few subsidies, security and PIB. If you look at few subsidies, why is Nigeria consuming so much fuel? Because people are buying petrol and putting it in their generating set so that they will get electricity. If you give Nigeria's electricity, the generators will suddenly go quiet, and that means we only need fuel for our cars. And probably Nigeria's fuel consumption will come down by half. And the fuel subsidy issue will be resolved. So these are the issues that the Presidential Economic Advisory Council has taken its eyes away from the cost of the problems, and they are focusing on the symptoms like fuel subsidies. All right. I want us to speak on, you know, the efforts that the current administration has made. I know that there is the Siemens deal that I believe is meant to generate about 11,000 megawatts. There's also been, you know, according to the government, investments in setting up new power plants in certain parts of the country. Abakiri, the late Abakiri before his passing also, I believe was also making moves towards, you know, these same power investments. So do you think that these, you know, investments that should have been given utmost priority right from, you know, 2015 or even prior to that? And are we being honest with ourselves, seeing the pace with which these investments in power are going? It's a very good question, and we have to give credit to where credit belongs. The government, like you rarely said, are trying to do something to address the power deficit. The two things. The first is, of all the governments in Nigeria, we have to give credit to the government or President Ulusegun Obasanjo, because it is his government that actually realized that without power, the economy is not going to work. So they set out on what they call the National Integrated Power Project, and this involves the construction of 10 power plants within the Niger data area so that they can harness the gas that is being fled and generate power and inject into the grid. So that project started in about 2005, 2006, and we have got those power plants there. I think about eight of them have been completed, and two of them are still in project phase. Now, the issue with that is that it's not just giving enough power, because the highest output from any of those plants is less than a thousand megawatts each, so it's not giving enough power. The second thing there is that the government of President Buhari has signed a deal with CMS to develop our power infrastructure. So the deal is in three phases. Phase one, which is to be delivered in 2021, is to expand our capacity to 7,000 megawatts. And then phase two, we expand the capacity to 11,000 megawatts, and then 25,000 megawatts, which is phase three. What is the issue here? The issue here is this. When government gets involved in anything, it doesn't move quick, because government has a huge bureau question. We all know that when government is taking decisions, it's not taking decisions purely on an economic basis. They are also taking decisions based on political considerations. And you now see the impact. The impact here is that the CMS deal is going to give us 25,000 megawatts of electricity by 2025. If you look at the quantum of deficit that we're talking about, this is not enough. This is not enough. Nigeria should be talking about getting that 100,000 megawatts of electricity that Mr. Lumelu was talking about in about five years, and it can be done. And how can it be done? It will be done if the government decides to do what happened in the telecommunications sector, in the electricity sector. So let me give you the statistics. In the telecommunications sector, the government had a company called NITR, and NITR was the sole provider of telecommunications, which is what we are now experiencing in power. Under NITR, we had 400,000 lines, telephone lines in the country. The GDP contribution of telecoms to the economy was 0.1%. The total investments in telecommunications was $50 million. Fast forward to privatization, where MTN and Co were invited to come in. From 400,000 lines, we are now having more than 200 million telephone lines in Nigeria, more than 200 million active telephone lines. From an investment of $50 million, we are now having $70 billion invested in Nigeria in the telecom sector by the private sector. From a GDP contribution of 0.1%, we are now having a GDP contribution of 15% by the telecom sector in the Nigerian economy. 15% GDP contribution is more than oil, which is what a lot of people may not even know. And when government was sinking money in NITR, year in, year out, government was sinking money in NITR, and yet NITR was not providing telecoms, but were providing excuses. Today, the government is not spending money. Rather, the private sector that is running the telecoms is paying money into government coffers. So telecoms is one of the biggest sources of revenue into government coffers. And when NITR was collecting money from government, they could only provide these 400,000 lines in the major cities and towns in Nigeria. The private sector has taken telephone to every remote village in Nigeria today. And the customers are paying far less. If you permit me to give you a personal example. When I married my wife, she was in Abuja, and I was in Wari, working in the oil industry. So once she relocated from Abuja to Wari, where there was no NITR mobile telephone, I took her NITR mobile telephone, which we used to call, not mine not, to Abuja on one of my trips. I sold it for 150,000 Naira more than 20 years ago. Think about that. And today, Nigerians are activating their SIM cards for almost three. And they are making calls for 10 Naira or there about per minute, which is not what we obtained with NITR. Yet government was sinking money into NITR. And I have to look at the employment generating capacity of telecoms from the direct jobs that these companies have recruited Nigerians and they are working for them to do selling recharge cards to those who are contractors in the industry. Ms. Agulay, so you're saying that we should fully privatize the power sector. And that includes generation and transmission and distribution. From generation to transmission to distribution should be totally privatized in the same way we did telecoms. Because if you look at the power sector right now, if you look at the power sector right now, the government privatized the generation but the government is holding onto transmission, which is important. So when the generation companies generate power, they cannot even evacuate the power because the transmission is not there. We were on this program a few days ago discussing about the transmission system collapse. The transmission system is collapsing frequently because it is not robust enough to carry the power that is being generated. Alright, Nica Agulay. If you give too much power into the system, it will collapse. We would like to end the conversation here. It's a very important conversation and we hope that the NEAC will, of course, advise the president adequately and we'll move in the right direction. But thanks anyway for your time. Thanks for speaking with us this morning. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure always. So, Otawa Gerili, with all the challenges we're having in Black Power, I really wonder at what point would we as a country be able to confidently talk about the potentials of renewable energy sources like the sun, the wind, the tide, the rain. There's just so much potential. The economic benefits are there. It's going to be, of course, very affordable for everyone to get power. It's sustainable, it's natural, it's renewable. So all these other considerations with solar power, renewable energy sources. But we can't even confidently talk about that because we don't even have the political will like we always mention to sort out these issues that we're having regarding our power generation capacity, which is far, far, far below what is obtainable in many other countries around the world. That's why it's said it needs to be fully privatized. So when it's fully privatizing, you have companies decided we're going to provide them solar power, we're going to be providing power from gas, we're going to provide power from wind turbines and stuff like that. So until then, we're going to continue to do this naked dance in the market and waste time achieving absolutely nothing or just very little. This is where we wrap up the breakfast for this morning. Thank you so much for sharing your Tuesday morning with us. If you missed out on any of these conversations, remember to join us on our social media platforms. 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