Nigeria's energy industry has been put under great fire due to the fact that it has been highly inefficient in meeting the needs of customers across the country. [1] Why this is extremely troubling for Nigeria is because with all the energy struggles Nigeria faces, they are among the leaders in the world in energy resources. Nigeria is the sixth largest largest exporter of crude oil in the world so there energy conflicts are rather disappointing. [1] According to the article, Nigeria's Dual Energy Problems: Policy Issues and Challenges states, that services have greatly effected the living standards of the Nigerian community where a majority of individuals live on less than two dollars a day. What we know now is that we can clearly understand that Nigeria has the necessary resources to be a successful energy industry but suffer from numerous amounts of energy crisis.
Nigeria is the most populated country in the continent of Africa, housing over 150 million people in the country. [2] The article, The Energy Crisis of Nigeria, An Overview and Implications for the Future, states that Nigeria often times struggles with generating a power supply that reaches a 100% of the population and a majority of people on the power grid simply don't receive energy. This struggle with energy leaves many citizens of Nigeria powerless. Simply Nigeria does not have enough electricity to support and provide to the citizens of Nigeria. This is due to Nigeria current use of hydropower and thermal energy which has been highly inefficient in meeting the needs of the population. [2] In trying to defuse this problem the idea of privatization came into play for the decision makers of Nigerian energy. Yet the country is receiving push back from the citizens. The Nigerian government in order to develop the needed infrastructure to give Nigeria adequate energy would need to be funded and receive a lot of financial support from the citizens of the country. Yet there has been attacks made to sabotage the privatization of energy my citizens of the country who are against using their financial means to support energy growth from a corrupt government. [2] This push back from the citizens is only making the energy crisis worse.
There has been many proposed directions that have been discussed to help Nigeria solve this energy crisis and some have suggested that Nigeria shy away from providing their natural resources external and in turn in use these resources for their own countries well-being. [2] Yet it doesn't seem like the most feasible plan due to the decrease in water supply in the country. There are talks of the adoption of renewable technologies but the conversation quickly returns to the matter of financial support. [2] I believe if Nigeria is ever able to get the population on board with privatizing the energy sector it could go a long way in getting them out of this energy crisis.
© Aziz Shittu. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] A. Iwayemi, "Nigeria's Dual Energy Problems: Policy Issues and Challenges," Proc. 31st IAEE International Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, 18-20 June 2008, p. 17.
[2] J. Kennedy-Darling et al., "The Energy Crisis of Nigeria: an Overview and Implications for the Future," University of Chicago, 3 Jun 08.