Date Published: 11/04/09

Protest by Diasporas against poor power provision

I have become an ardent observer of people in government vis-à-vis their approach to what concerns the wellbeing of the citizens.  My conclusion is that God Almighty should remain our judge in matters between those governing and the governed. 

On Cable Network News (CNN) Friday 23, 2009, there was a focus on Nigerian NGO in diasporas called “LIGHT UP NIGERIA” which has been propagating movement towards ensuring that Nigeria moves from darkness to having light that is one of the basic requirements of qualitative living and productive progress Nigeria require.

Whereas it could be simple to achieve, electricity-power has remained a hard nut and elusive to crack by subsequent Nigerian government that ever came to power. We have wherewithal for this, yet we seem not to have gotten the right people with the right attitude and will to actualize this.

Furthermore, I joint others in advising Prof Dora Akunyili, the Minister of Information and Communication, to always shut up whenever she has no convincing contributory statement to make on any particular issue. It is not a must that as the Information Minister, she must comment on every issue. Her response to the CNN correspondent quest to find out what the government is doing to secure the required power generation and distribution in Nigeria was to say the least, empty and disappointing; she made no sense or point at all by saying that “the government of President Yar’adua is making all efforts to ensure that Nigeria attains the required power desirability”. To all intent and purpose, she said nothing by that statement.

A Ghanaian Minister who visited Nigeria recently had, while contributing to the Nigerian power discourse, insisted that Nigeria only required the will-power to achieve electricity stability. He even opined that Ghana might consider supplying power to Nigeria if Nigerian government requested. What a shame.

Fatima Jibril – ( fatimajibril90@yahoo.com )

        Plot 1299 Taiwo Ibrahim Street

                Asokoro, Abuja, FCT.