Politically speaking, this topic will be in form of a series where clear examples will be highlighted to encourage other political players, especially the sub nationals in Nigeria, to invest in the power sector instead of either embarking on projects like construction of flyovers, as alleged by the federal government, that have little impact on their people or making excuses because there is a proverb that when there is a will, there is a way.
It is common to hear sub nationals putting the blame for their inability to meaningfully contribute to the growth and development of the power sector on the flaws in our constitution cum grundnorm. They dwell so much on the technicality of the document that puts the power sector on the exclusive list. This is behaving like those who ignored the wounded and helpless man in the Bible before the Good Samaritan took it upon himself to carry the injured man to the hospital. My simple argument against this negative attitude is to say that if we are complaining of the inadequacies in our ruling document, what do we say about nations like Britain that have no written constitution to guide their affairs? We can make the best use of our extant document to serve our people with the right political will.
In order to dismiss this line of argument, we shall run a series on the few sub nationals that have taken the bull by the horn and successfully invested in the power sector.
The first sub national to be considered is Lagos state under the administration of the current APC Presidential Candidate in the 2023 general elections, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that built a 270MW (made up of 9 Barges of 30MW generation capacity each) power plant in partnership with AES Nigeria in 2001. Even though there were legal and political challenges and resistances against the project, the state mustered the political will and successfully birthed the power station.
While it was in operation, AES contributed immensely to the power supply situation in Lagos state by augmenting what Egbin power station produced thereby improving both the quantity and quality of power supply in Lagos state and boosting the socio-economic activities of the people. Lagos state has the highest demand for power supply in the country and it imports the bulk of its power supply from the other part of the national grid. With AES generating 270MW and Egbin power station producing close to 1,000MW (it has an installed generating capacity of 1,320MW made up of six installed machines with a capacity of 220MW each), it reduced their import thus lessening the stress on the 330kV lines available for transmission of power into Lagos (the lines are Benin-Egbin, Benin-Omotosho-Ikeja West, Oshogbo-Ikeja West, Oshogbo-Ayede-Olorunsogo-Ikeja West, Egbin-Aja 1 & 2, Egbin Ikeja West, Egbin-Oke-Aro-Ikeja West 1 & 2).
Although not generating today, the positive impact of that giant stride by the Lagos state government cannot be overemphasized. The fact that Lagos state surmounted legal and political hurdles by building this power plant means that what is really required is for other sub nationals to prioritize the issue of the power sector and have the political will cum determination to improve the quality of life of their citizens by embarking on either directly constructing power stations for the benefit of their people or indirectly by creating the enabling environment for the private sector to come and invest in the power sector since funding is problematic these days.