Nigeria: An Ailing Nation on Striking Knees!

Tension was high in the country on Wednesday 17th August, 2022 when the aggrieved workers of the Transmission Company of Nigeria  (TCN) shut down the electricity national grid. Their action, which was triggered by certain factors that includes a directive by the TCN Board that all principal managers who are in acting capacity must undergo promotion interviews, made impact as they downed tools and threw the nation into blackout.

At the instance of that action, the national grid dropped from 4,149 megawatts recorded at 6am to zero generation at 4pm, causing total blackouts nationwide. In effect, thousands of businesses, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that depend on electricity to run their services as well as homes that use electricity to preserve perishable products bore the pain and losses from that action.

In furtherance of their industrial action against the TCN Board and the federal government, the workers, under the aegis of the National Union of the Electricity Employees (NUEE) blocked the entrance of the TCN Headquarters, a building that houses the offices of the Federal Ministry of Power and so locked out all staff of the ministry, including the two Ministers of Power and their respective aides.

They vowed to continue the strike action until their demands are met by the government and the TCN Management. Mindful of the omnious consequences the strike could bring, the government, through the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Sen. Dr. Chris Ngige quickly called the aggrieved workers to a negotiation table. Hours after the meeting with the government, they decided to call off the strike, suspending it for two weeks.

It is rather pathetic that we have a government that allows issues to escalate to crisis level before intervention is made. And for how long can we continue to bear the consequences of such an indolent government?

Interestingly, the urgency with which the government called the striking staff of NUEE for negotiation seem to have justified the fact that we have a government that only cares for their own interests while neglecting the interests of the common people that voted them into power.

It has shown that lack of electricity seem to bother this government more than our failed education system which is not affecting those in power because their children are in schools abroad, in countries where things work. Electricity affects those in government because, when the nation is in blackout, they are thrown in darkness like the masses. They need power to run their activities. It is audible to the deaf that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC lack the political will to address the myriad problems bedeviling our dear nation.

The 2023 general elections offer Nigerians another golden opportunity to right the wrongs, not hire selfish people as leaders to pilot the developmental affairs of Nigeria. We must hire leaders that have the vision, experience and political will to implement policies that will put a stop to the needless and incessant strikes that has become a hallmark of our public sector and jeopardise our undergraduate students.

We must hire  as our next president, a leader with verifiable track record of having brought his people of Anambra State out of poverty when he was a governor. Mr. Peter Obi is the man. You can go and verify that while campaigning for governorship in Anambra State, the Labour Party Presidential Candidate visited Bangladesh to study how to pull a state out of poverty.

When he assumed office as the governor, he applied the knowledge he gained from that Bangladesh trip by building rural roads and bridges and connected the rural agrarian areas of the state with the cities thus enabling the people to have access to agricultural products and services. This effort boosted the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.

As a presidential candidate, HE Mr. Peter Obi has visited Egypt, about two months ago, to understudy their power and education sectors and he is thoroughly convinced that what he has learnt from that study visit to Egypt, if implemented in Nigeria, would turn around the Nigeria’s power sector and increase our power generation, distribution and transmission from about 4,600 megawatts to over 20,000 within a time frame of five years.

Also, the educational sector will be transformed by his administration; ASUU strike will be a thing of the past as students will graduate as at when due. It is on record, that when he was governor, the State owned university never went on strike throughout his tenure. Obi-Datti is the next leadership we need to rescue our ailing nation from its striking knees!