What’s my ‘band’ in this electricity conundrum?, by Uche Nnadozie

The question up there has made the rounds frequently in the last week since the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu addressed the media during a live telecast together with Mohammed Idris, the Minister of Information and National Orientation.

The power minister styles himself after Adegoke Adelabu, his renowned grandfather, a major player in the first republic politics. Penkelemi (junior), a first class accountant and banker has taken up his life’s most challenging task in public service – the power sector!

As an aside, it is fair to note the concerted effort of the Information minister and other communication team members from the presidency to improve dissemination of appropriate information to the public in recent times.

Having said that, Minister Adelabu came off from that presser leaving the listening public with many takeaways, but one has taken a life of its own: “band”! Band as a measure to understand the “ebb and tide” of the public electricity supply system, and the challenges of applying cost reflective tariff across board.

That word also has become the butt of jokes, memes and to a reasonable degree understanding of the sector which has been besmirched over the years by unhealthy contention and opprobrium. Although the bands are between A and E, some consumers have said their epileptic supply should place them in Z.

To belong to a band you will need to know how many hours a day your public supply of electricity could be guaranteed with the best seeing supply for at least 20 hours a day.

There are four other bands – B to E! Your residence or office in concert with neighbours would have to determine which band best suits your needs and your pocket.

From the minister’s many anecdotes but in particular the one on managing the powering of freezers by households has left some commenters in a foul mood. Responses appear to show that a large majority of Nigerians do not understand the issues at stake. I can confirm that in Nigeria most households do not switch off their freezers. It doesn’t matter if they are used to zero or 24 hours power supply.

It is just in us to leave freezers on. Whereas that can change going forward if you are “fortunate” to belong to the priority band A bracket.

Indeed people can pay less than the advertised increase supposing they are in the band A category, provided they become electricity billing and management experts. From explanations during the briefing, it is now obvious that usage of electricity can no longer be as wasteful as it used to except you are super rich to fund all your comfort guilts.

The increment for band A which has effectively eroded the subsidy hitherto paid by government on behalf of the masses is also because we simply don’t have enough power for everyone at the same time. From records, this priority band make up only 15% of electricity consumers nationwide.

For the rest of the bands, there is still subsidy up to 67% especially for band E.

While I have criticized the ministry and DisCos several times and severely over poor service delivery and equally poor customer service it is fair to add that there are changes in that regard although a lot still needs to be done. Thus, I implore the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Agency (NERC) to protect customers as much as they have done on behalf of DisCos, GenCos and the TranCo.

The other moot point is timely and effective communication regarding the critical but overtly subsidized power sector. Nigerians need to know the enormous funds, equipment, technology, human resource injection needed in the complicated sector. They need to know what it takes to build gas powered power generating stations via a vis hydro power stations, for example. They need to know where those inputs are needed in the entire electricity value chain. We also need to know the fraudulent legal issues stalling some groundbreaking projects in the sector. For example: the Mambilla hydro power project! Further explainers needs to follow at every stage of the Siemens project, as many Nigerians feel good each time incontrovertible performance scorecards are made available to them.

For the band regime not to be seen as social class discrimination, apart from further explainers, DisCos and government must ensure the promised service delivery is real. Already people are being ripped off by charging them tariffs meant for band A whereas they get nothing better than band E in supply. There is also the need for better feedback mechanism management from customers at various levels. There is need to have fair pricing at this time of high cost of essential commodities. Finally, meters must be made available to every identified customer within a reasonable timeline with costs made public. If the government borrowed money to acquire meters to ensure appropriate energy pricing, customers can also be guaranteed by the government or banks should such acquisition be passed to them.

While I am satisfied with insights provided by the Minister during the briefing, this simply means that more Nigerians needs to be made aware of the issues in a deliberate, planned manner.  However, he and the rest of the power stakeholders should know that there is still darkness in the land. 4,000MW is simply meagre. I’m happy to hear the efforts to organically improve because as at 2003, the population of Nigeria was estimated to be 120million and we were managing 4,000MW, today we are over 200 million, it is still the same number of mega watts which is one of the factors that has now landed us in the band regime.

-Nnadozie is a Lagos-based journalist