Dele Morakinyo.

Dele Morakinyo

Not too long ago I was one of those already applauding what appeared like a significant improvement in the power sector as the electricity supply from Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company which covers my area became predictable. Not that it was commendable though, but consumers could almost be certain when there would be light and when there would be darkness in my Akobo area of Ibadan.

That illusion, that is what I have interpreted that period to be, has since been removed. These days one does not even know when to expect electricity, and whenever we see it, it’s outage will come before you settle down to enjoy what should ordinarily be taken for granted.

Within the few weeks I referred to as being predictable, if you had light in the evening, it could last the whole night, or when it came deep into the night, it would be available for use for almost all through the morning. But if that was as much as we could be served as lovers of average to which citizens have been turned into, and we were like clapping for IBEDC, that scenario has since been replaced with a woeful performance.

I want to confess that I started to write this article because a participant in a TV show said it repeatedly that the supply of electricity in his area has improved, he even described the improvement as drastic! As I tried to call friends within the neighbourhood to ask if they were also enjoying such uncommon privilege as improved power, the light in the area suddenly went off so I decided to make the enquiry to my Facebook friends.

Long before now I have never had much confidence in the nation’s power sector, and my loss of confidence started a long time ago. I had once in the past stayed off public power supply and depended on my generator and other sources of light, including candles and torch lights. That was long ago when their shenanigans became unbearable for me, and for eleven months in Ekiti State, under the Benin Electricity Distribution Company I let them hold on to their light and I had my peace.

Ironically, I served in an agency where I was given the task of sensitising people in the state about the plans to meter every consumer household within some months, all in the effort to justify the pending increase in the electricity tariff under…was it MYTO 3 (?) and my agency was mobilised to go on air across the country to sell the lie of metering the whole nation in not longer than either six or eighteen months, I can’t remember now. That was about twelve or thirteen years ago! Please dear reader, has your own house been metered?

When the Buhari administration assumed office, one of the earliest government agencies to visit the presidency was the then management of the NERC and after a meeting with the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo the VP told Nigerians that the only way regular supply of electricity could be guaranteed was to allow the service providers charge economic rates. If we cast our minds back to the number of times electricity tariff has been hiked, yet the services are still as deplorable as they are, then my case for distrusting the operations can be established.

When there was that brief interregnum of little improvement, some indigenes of Ibadan believed that the Minister in charge, Chief Bayo Adelabu, a fellow native was trying to worm his way into the heart of his people because of what they termed as his governorship ambition in theforthcoming elections. So now that things have gone back to the days of unreliable power supply, what will the jury come up with? With the intermittent grid collapse, stories of repeated vandalisation of infrastructure and sundry lamentations, will his ambition now go up in smoke?

In my area, the new year day was largely without light. As soon as my grandson who came visiting with his parents was beginning to enjoy his favourite cartoon film, the light went off again after a short period of respite. More importantly on Monday we could not watch much of the transmitted Presidential media chat. We had waited in anticipation following the lavish publicity given to that first time in eighteen months. One was glad that there was light when the broadcast commenced but just as we were enjoying the zeal and candour with which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was rocking and rolling with the team of his interviewers, the light went off! You can only imagine the pain.

Such a peculiar mess!