Leadership is basic to Nigeria’s problems. It is the only reason why in spite of our material and human resources, Nigeria remains one of the poorest nations of the world. Leadership is the ability to harness whatever we have to achieve our financial goals for the good of all Nigerians. One of CNN’s celebrated correspondents once remarked that presently, we have world leaders and we have men who want to rule the world.

In Nigeria, unfortunately, we have men who want to rule us but not to lead us aright.
An attempt is made in this piece to relate the issue of leadership to the current lack of electricity supply in Nigeria. Is there a way of making our leaders to understand that, though, they have free generators and diesel in their homes and offices, yet, the country is technically and economically “dead” without electricity supply?

The first mistake the present government made was to declare to all Nigerians immediately it gained power, that provision of budget and therefore allocation of funds to the energy sector would not be made until and unless the $5.9 billion or $10 billion or $16 billion spent on the sector during the last regime, was investigated and addressed. This decision showed lack of foresight. Perhaps that is why we are in the present dilemma. It is obvious that whatever remained of our old equipment could not be serviced as there was no money to procure necessary spare parts and consumables. Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) could at least be given sufficient money to continue to maintain the 3,000 megawatts (mw) which was available before the present government came in.

There is no doubt that Nigeria is presently in darkness. A situation where thirty minutes of light is rationed per 24-hour day is better imagined than described. But why is Nigerian case always different from others? Did we always plan to succeed or to fail? Why would our plans refuse to materialize? In an earlier article, I had anchored our inability to give ourselves light to lack of proper planning and implementation.

However, recent disclosures have indicated that the problem might be rooted somewhere else-corruption and attempts at cutting corners with the aim to appropriate to a few, money meant for development and approved projects. Unfortunately, nowadays, this includes virtually every one of us-politicians, academicians, accountants, engineers, doctors, traders, journalists, etc, because we seem to think that this is the norm rather than the absurd.

Will there be light at the end of the tunnel and when will this show? Only good leadership can say. This is the main reason why many of us are now talking of a revolution since we have tried all available leadership (military and civilian) and they have failed us. The irony is that even with a revolution, the leadership will still have to come from amongst us. The difference however, is that in most cases, revolution can be likened to the fire of God: it purifies.

The National Assembly is now probing the money spent in the energy sector. That in itself is good but government must be seen to be doing something to ameliorate the suffering of the masses at the same time. It may be that government’s plan is working out, since most Nigerians are now more interested in the revelations coming from the various investigations more than the fact that for a whole week, they might not have electricity supply in their offices and homes and that they could neither work gainfully during the day nor sleep well at night. And the results of the investigations for which millions of Naira are being spent may never see the light of day. Of what use has been all the investigations and probes carried out in Nigeria since independence?

In fact, some prominent Nigerians, even before the conclusion of the investigations, have stated pleading that those found guilty should neither be jailed nor punished. One is tempted to ask; what manner of country is this? In several countries of the world, including certain developed ones, past heads of government or startes who were indicted for acts of corruption and or lawlessness are being sent to jail after leaving office and African past leaders are not excluded.

This is perhaps the only country in the world where all types of importation is permitted in the name of open market policy, which originated from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund etc. I am aware that even Americans, with the largest economy in the world, still have reasons to protect their agriculture, among others. Our engineers, some of them trained in Nigeria, America, Europe, etc are in most cases jobless, but our leaders see nothing wrong in our importing toothpicks, matches, toilet rolls etc from Korea, China, India, Taiwan etc.

If these countries are allowed to freely bring anything into the country in the name of free trade, when are we going to develop our expertise knowing fully well that if we do not practise to do these things as a necessity, we may never know how to do them? Our engineers would not commence to manufacture these elements because the incentives are not present. There is no electricity or water or good roads to sensitize them to run the plants and we must remember that some of these exporters have amortized their investments in their home countries and can therefore flood our markets with goods at any price.

In this twenty-first century, Nigeria is about the only country in the world, where over five ships loaded with all types of generators from everywhere are competing for berthing places in our seaports at any point in time. The generator manufacturers and the diesel (diesel direct, diesel at home/office etc) sellers are daily laughing to the bank at our expense simply because our leaders cannot or have refused to take correct decisions. Of recent, a number of these generator and diesel sellers have opened banks in their premises for reasons that are obvious.

While some of these countries that take us for granted, praise us for having the best economy and potential in Africa, we ought to know that these are people who, because of our naivety, take advantage of us and want the status quo to continue in their own best interest. Virtually everything is now grounded if we must accept that, the barber, welder, fashion designers, tailor, engineer, doctor, architect, lawyer etc cannot work satisfactorily and gainfully without electricity supply.

Lack of power supply has also adversely affected the health of the people particularly those of us in cities such as Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Ibadan etc. We are well aware that people in these cities are used to sleeping with either fans or air conditioners. Doctors tell us that we are to have an average of eight hours of sleep every day. If you open your window for fresh air to come in, noise from generator owners and mosquitoes will not allow you to sleep; if you close your window to prevent the nuisance, the heat will make sleeping impossible. Many with fragile health conditions have died unknowingly as a result.

Leadership is at the root of all the problems we have-be it Niger Delta, corruption, roads, security, economy (a bag of rice is now N10,000), importation of petroleum products with its recent contamination (others will sell anything to us since we are in essence a consuming nation as opposed to a producing one) etc. However, I concur with those who have been able to trace our current predicament to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo because if he had not played god (the Yoruba call it ‘se bo ti to’) and allowed the people with the help of God to choose their leaders, perhaps, we might not have found ourselves in this mess of being unable to produce 2,000MW of electricity for over 150 million Nigerians.