Since the death of “Abami Eda”, late Fela Anikulapo Kuti of blessed memory so many years ago, his memory lingers on in almost every sphere of our daily lives in Nigeria.
The Afro-beat king sang so many songs with lyrics that reflected the everyday suffering of Nigerians across the country. Songs like “Beast of No Nation”, “Suffering and Smiling”, “Kalakuta Show”, “Zombie” among others too numerous to mention comes to mind. He sang about government giving us human rights, whereas, he claimed that human rights is our property which no government can give to us as lawful citizens of this great country, Nigeria.
He mentioned the excesses of the security agencies subjecting citizens to inhuman treatment and furthermore he chronicled the daily suffering and smiling phemonon that has become institutionalized in Nigeria.
He went into his deep spiritual archives to sing that despite the abundance of water everywhere in Nigeria, Nigerians can hardly get water to drink, no light to see, no food to eat and no house to live in.
Today, these problems have been more compounded as suffering and poverty are written on the faces of the hopeless and helpless Nigerians going about their usual routine everyday with no end in sight to their suffering and poverty. This negative way of life has led to sickness, disease and death.
Since this piece is on light as described by late Fela Anikulakpo Kuti and called electricity by the government, the fact remains that Fela’s orchestration about no light for the citizens, especially the masses has become a reality. Today, it is glaring that most part of the country are in total darkness as a result of the inability of the agency charged with the responsibility of providing the essential service, to discharge their duties diligently. Rather the operations of the agency has dwindled to insignificance rendering the entire citizens hopeless and helpless, leading to untold hardships that have taken toll in all aspects of human endeavour.
The Electricity Distribution Companies have failed the nation, thus, apart from the daily outage experienced in homes, offices, hospitals, schools and other business places, it has crumbled all businesses in the country, ranging from the small, medium to large scale. Most reputable companies including multi-nationals have been forced out of business as a result of the deficiency in supply.
Their profits have been exhausted on running Diesel for generating sets, so they had no option than to fold up.
In homes, offices and other places, heat both at day and night has made the places uncomfortable for habitation.
In Edo State, for instance, there is total darkness in almost every part of the capital city and beyond for over a month now. Yet the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) has no answer to the persisting problem. What a shame? Whereas, outrageous bills are being distributed on a monthly basis to unsuspecting and innocent customers who are extorted monthly for no service provided by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company, (BEDC).
Our investigation also revealed that most of their records are out of date, which the company has refused to update and correct. Thus no bills are given to such customers. What the BEDC staff now do on a monthly basis is to take their ladders and men to various streets, collect money between the range of N5000 to N2000 from the owners of the houses into their personal pockets, without going into the account of the customers. Those who dare ask them for bills are given cooked and exorbitant bills ranging into hundreds of thousand of naira out of annoyance.
The issue of pre-paid metre for every facility remains a far cry. The analogue metres has not helped matters to make bills commensurate to consumption. Rather, outrageous estimated bills have taken the center stage.
In the 50s up to the 70s, it was Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN). It later metamorphosed to National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and afterwards Power Holdings Company of Nigeria PLC (PHCN). Today, it is called Electricity Distribution Company having been privatized by the past Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The question agitating the minds of Nigerians now is “has the selling of the former government agency to private individuals done any good to Nigerians?” this becomes pertinent as the issue of Electricity was in the list of essential services in the past, which responsibility falls on government alone to provide. Hence right from the pre-colonial era and even after, the issue of Electricity and Pipe Borne Water were monopolized by the government.
With the persisting darkness pervading Benin City and environs, as well as other parts of the country and the failure of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and other counterparts in the country to stem the ugly trend and proffer lasting solution, it is time the government steps in to forestall a total collapse of Electricity and the power sector in the country.
This will also prevent the entrepreneurs in the power sector from their exploitation of the citizens who have resorted to buying all categories of generating sets to meet their daily needs.
A word is enough for the wise.
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