The report of the collapse of the Nigerian national electricity grid for the umpteenth time, compounding the woes of many businesses and pushing them towards higher energy costs, going by the present cost of diesel dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Guardian reports that barely 24 hours after generating companies warned of idle capacity and mounting debts, Nigeria’s electricity grid, yesterday, plunged for the umpteenth time, compounding the woes of many businesses and pushing them towards higher energy costs, going by the present cost of diesel.
With limited electricity supply from the grid, many businesses are forced to embrace alternative energy that has become expensive as a result of rising global prices of crude oil.
Indeed, the situation is compounding the woes of the country and many Nigerians, with implications for higher production costs and living expenses.
A direct flop to the country’s most trumpeted improvement in Ease of Doing Business (EDB), the national grip, which had remained epileptic with a mere 2,000 megawatts of electricity in the past month finally collapsed at about 10:40 a.m. yesterday, leaving the grid without any energy.
Coming at a time when the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) was left with the option of begging the government for palliative as diesel price and aviation fuel now increase almost on daily basis, stakeholders feared that the development may cripple businesses and worsen existing unfriendly living conditions in the country.
While Small and Medium Scales Enterprises that survive mainly on the premium motor spirit are struggling with the scarcity of petrol subsidies, bigger organisations that depend on diesel generators now have to buy the product for above N720 per litre.
The power generating companies in the country confirmed on Sunday that 14 power stations are idle due to grid-related challenges and the inability of the government to pay for generated electricity.
The newspaper says that parents, undergraduates and other stakeholders have voiced their disappointment as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) extended its ongoing strike by two months.
The aggrieved teachers had on February 14 declared a one-month warning strike in protest against the government’s failure to meet their demands.
Rising from an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) at the University of Abuja, yesterday, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said: “Having taken reports on the engagements of trustees and principal officers with the government, the union concluded that government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the four-week roll-over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight weeks to give government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible.”
BUT President, National Parents-Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), Alhaji Haruna Danjuma, said ASUU and the Federal Government could sort out their differences without making students victims.
He lamented that the strikes were becoming too worrisome, noting that the development does not portray the country in good light before the international community.
He said: “The strikes are making youths lose faith in education and consequently take to negative vices that may compromise their future. This development is dangerous to us as a nation. It does not speak well of us as a nation that truly desires accelerated development and transformation.
“Government should tackle this issue. It must go to work, and quickly too, to revisit whatever demands the lecturers are making.”
An educationist, Michael Effiong, said the strikes were becoming dangerous trends that consistently weaken fulfilment of the hopes and dreams of youths.
The Vanguard reports that the Nigerian Government in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has concluded plans to give financial empowerment to 75,600 batches A and B beneficiaries of N-Power programme.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, said this at the inauguration of the NEXIT-CBN Agri-Business, Small and Medium Enterprises Scheme (AGSMEIS) on Monday, in Abuja.
AGSMEIS is an initiative of the Bankers’ Committee, to support and complement the Federal Governments’ efforts at promoting Agri-businesses/Small and Medium Enterprises as a vehicle for sustainable economic development and employment generation.
The report quoted the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as saying that the event is designed to train beneficiaries, as part of strategy by the Federal Government to ensure that they actualise the objectives of N-Power initiative.
GIK/APA