Louis Brown Ogbeifun

By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | January 2, 2008I was in Port Harcourt (the Garden City) for a Joint Consultative Council (JCC) meeting from December 3^rd - 7^th 2007. Meeting days are usually Herculean because it could begin in the morning and end late in the evening. So, the only time I could attend to some private issues was between 7.30am and 8.30am or late in the night. Though calm had returned to Port-Harcourt, I was not courageous enough to take the risk at night so I chose the morning option. I wanted to open my mails and if possible do some few things on the internet. Unfortunately, the server in my hotel was down so I stayed put in my hotel room, hoping to accomplish the task the following morning.

I had visited the Garden City a couple of times in the past and found it easy communicating with friends and colleagues on the net because there were about three cyber café shops around the First bank cum B-Beck plaza hotel in the GRA around which axis I usually pitch my tent.

On Tuesday 4^th December 2007, I confidently strolled to the spots where the café shops were located to send some of my book launch photographs to brothers Umoh Ubong and Babatunde Oke for a story in their papers. I was utterly disappointed to find that one of the buildings where I used for internet surfing now hosts a political party secretariat while the other two cyber café have been turned into offices. After some enquiries about the nearest cyber café, I was directed to the State library complex not too far from Shark’s stadium. I paid eighty naira to okadalize (the art of travelling on motor bike) to the library. If there was any café around, I would have added only twenty naira to the okada tariff for a one hour browsing session.

It is no news that power outages are a way of our national life, so the facilities at the library complex were also powered by a generator set. Within the spate of an hour, there were more than three outages. The effect was the protests from the computers’ uninterrupted power supply (ups) as soon as power supply was interrupted. I am sure that in no time, the negative effect of sudden power surges and outages will take its toll on the air conditioning systems, stabilizers, ups, computers, printers, etc;.

Haven finished with my assignment which was not conclusive because of time constraint and the frequent power interruptions; I tried to ask questions on why those cyber café near my hotel closed up. The reasons for the closure were lack of electricity supply, which led the operators to the use generators as a source of power, rising cost of diesel, damages to computers and other accessories due to fluctuation of power if ever available, rising cost of maintenance of the facilities and the use of adulterated petroleum products, which was not friendly to the equipment.

I wept that morning because Nigeria is fast becoming the proverbial patched tube that won’t stop leaking despite all the interventions to seal the leaking spots. Aside the erosion of the employment generated by the operators of these closed café, I wondered what a developing country like ours can do to progress her technological advancement without infrastructures for information technology, stable power supply and high energy cost.  As I retired to my hotel room later that night, my mind wondered on what has befallen my beloved country and how we can get out of the valley of toddler nations.

The reason for my worry stems from the fact that though money is being pumped into the comatose energy sector, it seems to me that some very powerful but criminally minded Nigerians have perfected the act of taking away our comfort from us and are hell bent on bringing Nigerians to their knees.  Recently, the federal Government approved N1.4billion for the design, manufacture and supply of transmission and distribution equipment, stabilization through procurement of transformers and other system maintenance. Even with the wobbling electricity supply, which does not meet our national needs, the spate of vandalism of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) cables, transformers, the condensate lines of Shell Petroleum Development Corporation’s (SPDC) and other equipment associated with these service deliveries that should supply Gas to Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) for the provision of Gas to thermal stations across the country are going on at a dizzying pace. If nothing is done to stem this ugly trend we may just be sliding to the darkness of all ages no matter how much money government spends in the revamping of the sector. Worrisome also is that investors are not likely to put their money into distribution of power because of the fear of these vandals.

These acts of vandalism of PHCN cables and transformers, multinationals’ condensate lines would mean among other things:

1.   Decrease in capacity utilization by all the companies involved in the production and supply chain of Gas. Hector in his write up in the Vanguard of December 5^th opined that the recurrent fire at the Utorogu- Ughelli Pump Station trunk line due to vandalism and the shutting down of the facility has led to a shortfall of about 300million standard cubit feet of gas to the national supply grid. This is a huge economic loss.

2.  Associated power outages, which affect commercial activities especially manufacturing outfits.

3.  Increased overhead cost by the companies in the production and supply chain of Gas, which would be passed on to consumers. For instance, at Christmas, cooking Gas sold at between N6, 000-N8, 000.

4.  Increased cost of goods and services.

5.  Reduced level of power generation. Currently, Nigeria runs on a little less than 2000 Mega watts (Vanguard, Thursday, December 6, 2007; p.5).

6.  Massive capital flight courtesy of the country becoming a safe haven for large scale importation of generator sets.

7. Closure of manufacturing outfits because of high cost of energy.

8.  Increased environmental degradation due to fumes from the generators.

9.   Loss of employment to foreign countries where these generators are manufactured.

10.  Increased unemployment for the locals who are the losers in this criminal act.

11.  IIlegal smuggling into the country of arms by these vandals to fight law enforcement agents and other Nigerians who dare challenge their nefarious activities thereby heightening insecurity.

12.     Loss of revenue to Federal Government through these massive leakages and the subsequent replacement of vandalized PHCN equipment and condensate lines. For instance the multinationals will factor in all these costs of repairs of their burst pipes, vandalized flow stations and equipment into the joint venture accounts. So by default, Nigeria pays the bills for these despicable acts.

13.     Increased environmental pollution and degradation due to fires and spills from the vandalized pipelines.

14.    Destruction of car engines that use condensates from these illegal traders.

The implication of the above is a whole gamut of negative consequences like, explosions leading to scores of deaths as witnessed recently in Warri in 2007, economic sabotage in which the products meant for Nigerians are hijacked and aggrandized by a few cabals through the process of vandalism and subsequent illegal siphoning of products from the burst pipes. I became even more worried because these illegal wares are displaced every where in full glare of all and sundry and it seems the security agents are helpless in tackling the menace.

I believe we all must share in the blame of watching these ills perpetrated in and around us. If we had no markets for stolen cables, transformers and petroleum products, there shall be no cable, transformer and petroleum pipeline vandals. It will just be a matter of time for these dare devils to be out of business.

Unknown to so many people, the condensate stolen from vandalized pipelines, which we buy as kerosene end up killing our people. The specie we buy as premium motor spirit (PMS or petrol) damage our car engines. Head or tail, the larger society loses while these saboteurs smile to their banks. So, why can’t we help the Government to identify these cabals in order to save our people from these sudden deaths, tragedies, pains and agonies? After all, these people are not masquerades or spirits. They live with us as neighbours in our communities; they are our brothers and sisters, they congregate with us in our spiritual sanctum. We know where their businesses are located. We even eulogize these actors of evil at social functions and give them special chairs in places of worship. How could we be so mean to ourselves by allowing those who steal our common wealth to oppress us with the same products they have stolen from us? We must now start thinking of how to collectively strip these thieves of our inheritance. We can no longer rationalize that poverty and fighting for any freedom on our behalf are reasons for this unwholesome practice.

For the Government, it must do much more than vote money for energy projects because this money might just have gone into the bottomless pit as these economic saboteurs devise means of taking for themselves what government puts in at every turn. Government must ensure this vandalism stops. Since Chanomi creek pipeline, which was blown up in February 2005 is ready to transport crude to the refineries, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Communities, Federal and Delta State Governments must device ways and means of ensuring that Chanomi creek disaster does not occur again so that Warri and Kaduna Refineries would function optimally in 2008 and save for the country the hard currency deployed to the importation of such large amount of white products.

We had canvassed for community policing and satellite monitoring option in time past. It was consigned to the dust bin. Now that government seems to be interested in one of these options, it should be tried and soon too. Developmental projects tied to an all year round free pipeline and cable vandalism in a given community should also be considered as a form of motivation to the communities. Such promises must be fulfilled once the communities deliver on their commitment. It should not be business as usual.

Government should make it very clear to all our security chiefs that they would face the cudgel if in the next one year insecurity in their zones is not down by 75%. The security chiefs should in turn give their divisional subordinates the same target. However, to ensure fairness and equity, government must provide appropriate tools for the security agencies to enable them effectively discharge their duties. We cannot pretend that all is well. We have seen from the recent fight against corruption that some of our political leaders and their acolytes are richer than the Nigerian State and would do everything to continue to illegally lord it over us.

Except President Yar’Adua moves fast on his agenda on the power sector to save manufactures from their diminishing fortunes, restore hope to barbers, beauticians,  small scale industrialists and use appropriate state apparatuses to decisively deal with all economic saboteurs and the divisional (civilian) garrison commanders that seem to have grown above the law, fast track the war on corruption, do everything humanly possible to re-unite the six geo-political zones to pre-June 1993 level, intensify the dialogue option to disarm the militants that are now holding sway as defacto sectoral and tribal leaders, we may jolly well say goodnight to our envisioned economic height of 2020 because energy is very critical for any meaningful development to take place.

 

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