THE Revolutionary Socialist Movement (RSM) has called on the federal government to ‘re-nationalise companies operating in the power sector following the collapse of the national grid on Sunday, June 12, 2022.
Sunday’s crash makes it the fifth time in 2022 that Nigeria’s power grid collapsed leaving millions of people without access to electricity. The grid collapsed for the fourth time on April 8th-9th, 2022.
A statement signed by Salako Kayode, RSM’s Publicity Secretary on Tuesday said the continued failure of the state and the private sector to secure electricity as a basic human right to all Nigerian citizens is no longer acceptable to Nigerians.
“We consider the Nigerian ruling class, which is thirsty for more and more profits, to blame for this collapse of the power sector. This is despite the huge amounts of money that are spent by different administrations to support the private sector in energy production and distribution.
“In fact, billions of Naira of public funds were used to bail out the different companies in the power sector. N6 billion released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) were mismanaged and the same happened with other distribution and generation companies,” the statement reads.
According to the RSM, the Nigerian power sector has suffered from massive corruption and manipulation by many appointees and profiteers in the last 61 years. It said this was possible because of the lack of accountability and transparency in the system.
Stressing that the privatisation of the power sector made it difficult for Nigerians to have 24-hour electricity supply, thereby forcing them to rely on solar power, power banks and generators; the RSM said this made the World Bank to rank Nigeria 171 out of 190 nations in terms of access to electricity.
“As we speak, Nigeria power plants stations can’t generate up to 5,000 megawatts, when its grid has an installed capacity of 12,522 megawatts! The organisation of this system has obviously failed, it only continues to work for the sake of the profits of those involved,” RSM said.
While calling for an end to the regime of “estimated billing”, RSM is also urging Nigerian masses to join it in demanding for the “renationalisation of the power sector” without compensation to the generating and distribution companies.
“All the wealth of the power sector should return in the hands of society that has paid for it. We are also asking for the democratisation of the power sector, which should be controlled and managed by the elected representatives of the working people and the local communities.
“We call on the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and the Nigerian Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) to declare a day of actions in order to begin to send signal to the ruling class and the corrupt DisCos and GenCos management that it is time that they stop exploiting public funds and pay back the people of Nigeria what they have already pocketed,” RSM concluded.
FG Says Grid Crashes from 3,703MW to 9MW
The Nigeria Electricity System Operator (NESO), an arm of the federal government Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) on Monday said that the national electricity grid crashed from a peak of 3,703 megawatts to as low as 9MW on Sunday, leading to widespread blackout on Sunday around 6.49pm.
NESO said the peak generation of 3,703MW on Sunday was recorded at 5am, which crashed to 9MW Sunday evening leading to the eventual collapse of the national grid.
Various Discos including Enugu Electricity Distribution Company Plc, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, among others, had confirmed the grid collapse in various messages on Sunday night.
Although there has not been any official statement from TCN on the grid collapse, it was gathered that its restoration reached an advanced stage on Monday, as power generation rose to 2,744.6MW around 6am on Monday.
Nigeria’s power grid had collapsed twice in March and twice again in April this year. Power generation on the system had continued to fluctuate due to various concerns such as gas constraints, water management challenges, gas pipeline vandalism, among others.
