By Uzoma Ahamefule<\/p>\n
\u2022 Senator Enagi may have plans of going into solar importation
\ndirectly or by proxy, hence his request to ban generator use<\/p>\n
.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Senator Enagi, Sir,\u00a0 propose a bill that will make it compulsory
\nto probe the power sector and audit NNPC<\/p>\n
.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Propose a bill that will stop ex-governors who are senators from
\ngetting all rights as ex governors and still get salaries as senators<\/p>\n
The news of the proposal bill by Senator Bima Muhammadu Enagi of All
\nProgressive Congress (APC) Niger South last week to ban the sell and the
\nuse of generators in Nigeria was a shock that got many Nigerians really
\nupset. He added in his proposal that sellers and users should be jailed
\nnot less than 10 years. According to the Senator\u2019s explanation of the
\nnarrow proposal, if the bill is passed it will help to curtail the
\nmenace of environmental pollution and help facilitate the improvement of
\nthe power sector. I am speechless.<\/p>\n
Is Senator Enagi not aware that the generator business flourishing was a
\nresult of the government\u2019s failure to provide electricity for the
\npeople? Government should play her role well by providing steady power
\nsupply for us and we will see who will be interested in generators.
\nAnyway, while I will thank the senator for thinking about the
\nenvironment, it is equally obligatory to let him know like many
\nNigerians that I was highly very disappointed at his proposal and see
\nhis bill as very dishonest, provocative, shallow and laughable. The bill
\nis not different from the suppressive bill of \u201chate speech\u201d equally
\nproposed by his counterpart also from Niger State. I appeal to other
\nsenators, all well meaning Nigerians and our pressmen to help so that
\nthe socket of the life support of this bill that is still in incubator
\ncould be collectively plugged out immediately and now for it to die
\nquickly.<\/p>\n
I can vividly remember that when Buhari and APC were campaigning in 2014
\nprior to the 2015 election, Babatunde Fashola had been widely quoted to
\nhave said that any responsible government would fix Nigeria\u2019s
\nelectricity problem within six months, and that the best thing to do
\nwould be to vote out Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under the then
\npresident, Goodluck Jonathan. APC, President Buhari and Fashola are
\ntoday still in power and over five years have gone since they came to
\npower, what happened to their promises? Why do Nigerians still
\nexperience epileptic power supply after billions of dollars spent in
\nthat sector, and even in some areas they do not get light for months but
\nwould still be exploitatively asked to pay electric bills \u2013 for light
\nthey never saw and used? Why? Though in 2018 it was equally reported
\nthat Fashola denied ever making the statement attributed to him and
\nchallenged all to prove him wrong with evidence. But why did he not deny
\nthe statement in 2014 but waited till 2018 when the campaign of the next
\nelection was close?
\nThis same government was also reported to have promised to equal naira
\nto one dollar. Why does exchange rate of a dollar today fluctuates
\nbetween 350 and 400 naira? Meanwhile when they made the electoral
\npromise naira was exchanged then between 180, 190 and 200 to one dollar.
\nAt least this very promise has not been denied. The people of this same
\ngovernment promised security for Nigerians and to end Boko Haram. Have
\nthey defeated Boko Haram? Are we all secured? What are they telling us
\nabout their promises? It is on record that in the history of this
\ncountry that the lives of Nigerians have never been massacred like it is
\nwitnessed on daily basis today – in exception of the time of the
\nNigerian Biafra war. It is an equally known fact that this very
\ngovernment is clueless on how to tackle Boko Haram, acts confused, full
\nof propaganda and lies.<\/p>\n
President Buhari told us before he was elected in 2015 that fuel subsidy
\nwas a fraud. But in 2019 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a
\nreputable accounting firm, Buhari\u2019s government spent over N2.3
\ntrillion in subsidies in three years – N1.12 [1] trillion and N1. 2
\ntrillion on electricity and fuel subsides respectively – and the
\ngovernment has again budgeted N450 billion for petroleum subsidy in
\n2020.<\/p>\n
The essence of the above references on the government\u2019s promises and
\nfailures is to inform Senator Enagi that his proposal was a misplaced
\npriority and that he misfired. Hypocrites perhaps surround him as that
\nis the normal case with many Nigerian politicians, thus he may not know
\nthat this very federal government of today is a big failure.<\/p>\n
Obasanjo\u2019s government was accused by many – that included President
\nBuhari – of spending $16 billion dollars in electricity without giving
\nNigerians light, whether that was true or not I don\u2019t know.
\nConsequently Senator Enagi, Sir, please kindly propose a bill that will
\nmake it compulsory for private auditors and investigators to be
\nconstituted and be allowed to investigate all monies mapped out for
\nelectricity projects under President Buhari\u2019s government and beyond
\nand how they were used. Because genuine Nigerians would be very happy to
\nknow why all these years of spending billions of dollars in the power
\nsector that Nigerians are still without constant electricity like it is
\nin Ghana. Again Senator Enagi, Sir, propose a bill that should contract
\nprivate auditors to audit the account of NNPC and allow independent
\ninvestigators to investigate why our refineries cannot be repaired and
\nnew one cannot be built. We want to know those sabotaging the efforts of
\nthe government. Are those people invisible? Why can\u2019t Nigeria build
\nrefineries, and why have we spent trillions in oil subsidy? Some people
\nclose to those in authority are feeding fat at the expense of our
\ncollective pains and misfortune. Nigeria is really terrible.<\/p>\n
In a country where successive governments continued to fail in the midst
\nof plenty to provide basic amenities\u00a0 – health\/social care, electricity,
\nmotorable roads, drinkable water and qualitative education \u2013 failed to
\npay senior citizens their pension rights and workers their salaries as
\nwhen due, sometimes they are even owed up to four, six or eight months,
\nhow fair is it that ex-governors get their own entitlements and at the
\nsame time receive salaries as senators? Therefore Senator Enagi, Sir,
\nplease don\u2019t forget to include in your new proposal a bill that will
\nstop the rape and the cruel injustice against Nigerians. Let there be a
\nbill that will henceforth stop ex-governors from getting pensions money,
\nallocation of houses, changing or buying of new cars, health and house
\nmaintenance allowances all from government and still receive millions of
\nnaira salaries and other incentives as senators. Let the law be that an
\nex-governor who contested an election as a senator and won seizes
\nimmediately to receive the benefits that go with a former governor at
\nthe time he\/she is sworn in as a senator.<\/p>\n
Nigerians are brutally raped continuously by the political class and we
\nthe ordinary Nigerians are in pains. But for how long shall the same
\nordinary Nigerians continue to stupidly defend and support evil against
\nthemselves because of political affiliations, ethnic\/religious
\nbackgrounds or myopic selfish interests? When will they know that a good
\nroad does not recognize whether the plier is an APC or PDP etc. or even
\nan apolitical person?<\/p>\n
Senator Enagi, Sir, you are trying to dump the failure of the government
\nwith your proposal on the doorsteps of ordinary Nigerians because you
\nfeel that we can\u2019t do anything. You know that when you make the right
\nbill proposal that will end the hostage we are in in the power sector
\nthat it will definitely not go through because of the cabals who have
\ngri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Uzoma Ahamefule \u2022 Senator Enagi may have plans of going into solar importation directly or by proxy, hence his request to ban generator use .\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Senator Enagi, Sir,\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n