We all know how notorious the federal government is at making promises they mostly don’t keep, well when it comes to the electricity sector, there is no exception. Last year, the government increased electricity tariffs. This action was carried out at a time when the country was on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the government promised it was for the best and that there would be increased supply. A few days back, the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman has made a new promise to Nigerians that there are no new plans to increase tariffs again, reinforcing the promise commandment.
This reassurance was as a result of rumours going around of the government’s plans to increase electricity tariffs due to the just concluded tariff review meeting. Sale Mamman, however, came out to confirm that the tariff review process was routine as stipulated in the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) 2005.
However, with the FGs reputation for breaking promises, is this something we can trust them on? The last time they promised an increase in electricity supply, there were complaints from electricity consumers across the country on poor supply, even power plants went idle. In fact, in a report by the World Bank, Nigeria has become number one on the list of countries with the highest number of people without electricity in the world.
The promise commandment in the electricity sector is literally some type of jinx, because every time the FG says things will get better, they literally get worse. What if we stopped making promises and just started acting things out instead?