INADEQUATE ELECTRICITY IN BENIN CITY

Governor Godwin Obaseki is displaying an emotion here, anger, regarding a problem that requires rational analysis. Our people will ask, "Na today?"

From the Presidency, to the Federal Ministry of Power, NERC and the handicapped state governments, it has been obvious for years that no one understood the scope of the Nigerian electrical power conundrum. The DISCOs are simply the shriveled limbs of a diseased body closest to the electricity consumers. The manner of the so-called privatization did NOT solve any of the fundamental problems.

The following was my comment on BEDC and Mrs Funke Osibodu three years ago. # # # # # # # # # # # # #

RE: WHERE IS FUNKE OSIBODU?

I do not normally pay much attention to the gossip sections in the newspapers and other media platforms. But then in spite of my stated antipathy I must confess when some gem shows up.

Here I am referring to the above caption headlining a query/story about Mrs Funke Osibodu, which appeared on pg L2 Society of The new Daily Times of Tuesday, February 10, 2015.

Mrs Osibodu, who is the wife of renowned businessman of Vigeo Limited fame, Chief Victor Osibodu, was former Managing Director of Union Bank-in-transition. She is currently the Managing Director of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company, one of the DISCOs recently hived off PHCN.

In the Nigerian parlance, everyone who has ever blazed through the banking sector, from the days of import license, through the free-for-all that was the restricted foreign currency market of twenty years ago, down to the shady activities revealed in the Soludo/Sanusi years, is called a whizkid. It is then surprising that no one has noticed that despite amassing so much net worth, very few bankers can point to anything that they have made, any productive activity that they are involved in.

In a previous essay, popularly called Gas to Power Conundrum, I had clearly tried to educate the policy makers and public alike that many investors would find themselves in over their heads in this matter. Statistically some are bound to fail. The free market takes the blame here. Nothing that NERC does can prevent this from happening. There will be winners and losers. Our duty is to learn lessons from the "evolving scenario" and move on.

In conclusion, Mrs Osibodu, like other DISCO MDs is overwhelmed. Nothing she learnt in her many years in banking has prepared her for this. I doubt that she can recall where she left her "gele" after the last public outing. Not with Benin protestors heckling her from beneath the windows of her suite of offices. I do not envy her one bit.

Please, please, I am not picking on a woman. I hereby challenge Tony Elumelu and perhaps Hakeem Belo-Osagie to try their hands running one of the DISCOs. Or Bismark Rewane for that matter. The melding of sound engineering and economics is a hard nut to crack any day. That is why only a few are chosen to do this.