The All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP] noted with interest President Goodluck Jonathan’s assertion on power generation in the country during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. When questioned about his promise three years ago to ensure stable power supply in the country, Mr President answered that his government had recorded success and pointed out that every Nigerian, even the civil societies, were happy about power generation, and could readily attest to the commitment of his government to stabilize power supply in the country.
However, when Amanpour insisted that power outage was still a big problem, noting that she had received messages from Nigerians who expressed concerns that they might not get electricity to watch the interview, President Jonathan acknowledged that his administration had not achieved the targets it set for itself and promised to deliver results by the end of the year. This was an obvious deflated ego trip, effectively shot down by the fact that stable power supply still remains a mirage in our great nation, and could not be ameliorated even by any contrived public relations mileage that could be garnered via a world renowned media channel like the CNN.
Our great party believes that The President’s assertion on power patently shows that either he is not properly briefed, or he is not in touch with the reality on ground in the country. Officially, Nigeria’s power generation has dropped from its December 2012 figure of 4,502 megawatts to 4,286 megawatts, though there are suggestions from various informed quarters that the actual generation is 3,700megawatts. In fact, we make bold to aver that most of the Nigerian citizens are not feeling the impact of any increase in power generation, and the figures bandied around by the PDP-led Government does not have any impact on the lives of the ordinary citizen.
Furthermore, our great party is worried because instead of concentrating on the provision of basic infrastructure for the populace, this present government is just gloating over meager power generation where trillions of naira of the people’s commonwealth has already been squandered. What is 4,000 megawatts or even 20,000 megawatts on paper, when the artisan in the street cannot see power to run his business; the entrepreneur does not have hope of powering his small venture; and the housewife does not have enough power to preserve her food items in the freezer? This is the least that could be demanded of a leader by his people.
Signed:
Hon Emma Eneukwu
National Publicity Secretary
ANPP
27-01-13
