The State of the Nigerian Power Sector: Issues, Alternatives and Prospects

The State of the Nigerian Power Sector: Issues, Alternatives and Prospects

An address delivered at:

International Headquarters of 

The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM)

Anthony Oke, Gbagada Expressway, Lagos, on 21st September, 2014,

By

Professor Bart O. Nnaji, FAS, FAEng, CON, NNOM

(Former Minister of Power and Chairman/CEO of Geometric Power Limited)

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

When the presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) Dr. Mike Okonkwo asked me to speak here today I wondered if he understood that I am not a preacher and that as an Engineer, I do not have that colorful language which opens God’s ears widely when the preacher speak! But then, in his letter, he stated that the theme of the program is “The state of the Nigerian Power Sector: Issues, Alternatives, and Prospects”. 

THE POWER OF YOUR VOTE, a catalyst for stable and united Nigeria

Professor Akin Oyebode: 

A Professor of Law and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos. He chairs the International Law and Jurisprudence as well as the University’s International Relations, Partnership and Prospects unit; he was a former Dean and Vice Chancellor at the Ondo State University and University of Ado Ekiti Respectively. He was also a delegate at the just concluded National Conference,

 He was the guest speaker at an event titled THE POWER OF YOUR VOTE (a catalyst for stable and united Nigeria), the program was to commemorate the birthday of one of the more forthright and enduring men of God in the land, the inimitable and highly celebrated Bishop Mike Okonkwo, founder and chief motivator of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission, better known by its acronym, TREM. 

In his address Professor Oyebode x-rayed the democratic praxis in Nigeria as against other democracies around the globe in a way that makes for interesting reading as you will soon find out below.

INTRODUCTION 

It is nearly universally agreed that perhaps the most important determinant of the democratic process lies in the capacity of the electorate to choose in a free, fair and credible manner those who are to exercise political power and authority over them from time to time.  Less enthusiastic or, perhaps, one might say, less charitable doubters of the electoral process in bourgeois societies would argue that “elections merely afford the masses once every four or five years the chance to select their oppressors and executioners”!

Yet, as Winston Churchill once observed, democracy was the worst form of government aside from all the others! So, as bad as things might look under a democratic dispensation, especially, bearing in mind our experience here in Nigeria, it should be admitted that the world has been unable to fashion another system that can better offer dividends to the people at large than what democracy does.  Despite its steep learning curve, especially in our own circumstances, democracy, it would seem, continues to fire the imagination of many and is perceived by them as the silver bullet capable of extinguishing most, if not all of society’s woes.

Wages of Impunity, by Wole Soyinka

Wages of Impunity, by Wole Soyinka

The dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang of psychopaths and child abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS campaign on internet, finally met its match in Nigeria to inaugurate the week of September 11 – most appropriately. Shekau’s danse macabre was surpassed by the unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry point into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK JONATHAN 2015.

President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard.

TOYIN'S RUNWAY: ORIGIN OF THE YORUBAS “THE LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL” B...

TOYIN'S RUNWAY: ORIGIN OF THE YORUBAS “THE LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL” B...: A NTHROPOS 106.2011: 579 – 595 Origin of the Yoruba and “The Lost Tribes of Israel” Dierk Lange The article is a revised version ...

ORIGIN OF THE YORUBAS “THE LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL” BY DIERK LANGE

ANTHROPOS

106.2011: 579 – 595

Origin of the Yoruba and “The Lost Tribes of Israel”

Dierk Lange

The article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference “Jews and Judanism in Black Africa and Its Diaporas” which was held at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London,30 – 31​ October 2010.

Abstract. – On the basis of comparative studies between the dynastic tradition of the Ọyọ-Yoruba and ancient Near Eastern history, the present article argues that Yoruba traditions of provenance, claiming immigration from the Near East, are basically correct. According to Ọyọ-Yoruba tradition, the ancestral Yoruba saw the Assyrian conquests of the Israelite kingdom from the ninth and the eighth centuries b.c. from the perspective of the Israelites. After the fall of Samaria in 722 b.c., they were deported to eastern Syria and adopted the ruling Assyrian kings as their own. The collapse of the Assyrian empire is, however, mainly seen through the eyes of the Babylonian conquerors of Nineveh in 612 b.c. This second shift of perspective reflects the disillusionment of the Israelite and Babylonian deportees from Syria­-Palestine towards the Assyrian oppressors. After the defeat of the Egypto-Assyrian forces at Carchemish in Syria in 605 b.c. numerous deportees followed the fleeing Egypto-Assyrian troops to the Nile valley, before continuing their migration to sub-Saharan Africa.

([Nigeria, Assyrians in Africa, Lost Tribes of Israel, migrations, state foundation, conquest state, dynastic traditions, oral traditions, African king lists] Dierk Lange, Dr. Troisième Cycle (1974 Paris), Thèse d’État (1987 Paris); Prof. em. of African History, Univ. of Bay­reuth. – Field research in Nigeria, Niger, and Libya. – Publications include books and articles on the history of the medieval empires of West Africa (Ghana, Mali, Songhay,Kanem-Bornu) and on the history and anthropology of the Yoruba, Hausa, and Kanuri. – See References Cited).

YOUR WILL IS YOUR VOICE IN DEATH: DEAD YOU CAN STILL BE IN-CHARGE

YOUR WILL IS YOUR VOICE IN DEATH
DEAD YET IN-CHARGE
toyinsrunway

Without trying to scare you I need to remind you that death is a respecter of no one, it comes to the old as well as the young, the male or the female. However the question is; what become of your life’s labor after you are gone to the grave beyond? are you so careless as to allow all comers to feast on them at your death?

While it is understandable that you are careless what happen after you are dead and gone but are you also careless about your love ones after your demise? Is it not better to secure their future even in death? and what better way to do it than to have your your WILL written, spelling out how you wish for your properties to be shared after your death, particularly as an African and in Africa where tradition gives more authority to our extended or distant relatives over the deceases estate.

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

Every one need love, in fact no LOVE no life, love is the life blood of society, no doubt.

Man (Male or Female) is an object of love, life becomes more meaningful, more purposeful and more interesting once we start to expend love and enjoy it as being expended on us by others. In an Ancient Book, the Great Master’s reply to a lawyer’s inquest was that the summary of all laws and ordinances is LOVE; love for the most High God and love for fellow mankind (our neighbor).