How PHCN Kaduna De-Legitimizes President Jonathan

By

Yusuf Nagi Ahmad

yusufnagi2698@yahoo.co.uk

Years since the creation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria PHCN after the unbundling of the former National Electric Power Authority NEPA, Nigerians have hoped that by now, there would have b een a new lease of life of regular, if not constant, power supply in the nation. And truly indeed, in some towns such as Abuja and Kaduna, which have military and/or political establishments of national strategic significance, the power supply situation has tremendously improved.

This contrasts sharply with the cities of Kano and Gusau for example, which are only of commercial significance, and whose power supply has not experienced the same quantum of improvement.

To further buttress the fact: even within Kaduna metropolis, the power supply situation is much more favorable to Kaduna North, which provides the actual locale of some of the nation’s strategic military establishments, as against what obtains in say Kaduna South, or the Igabi LGA sector of the Kaduna metropolis. And in Kaduna North, Kawo and Hayin Banki, in which are located the Nigerian Defence Academy NDA, the headquarters of the strategic 1Division of the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Air Force Base, enjoy a near constant power supply which does not really tally with the lowly position of their residents, but for the ennobling presence of these military establishments in their neighborhood. Therefore, with the near constant power supply, the residents of these areas would ordinarily be expected to enjoy a boom in small scale economic activities such as grains milling, tailoring, internet cafes, welding, printing and so on – at least more than the rest of the Kaduna metropolis, and indeed far ahead of all other cities of the north, except Abuja. But the reality on the ground is that Kawo and Hayin Banki, rather than being havens of booming economic activities of small scale businesses, are two areas which have proven to be a sure graveyard of same. This is not as a result of lack of power supply. Indeed the supply of power to the two areas is near constant as already mentioned.

Or they may deliberately ‘undersupply’ a particular phase by creating a ‘half-current’ situation, thus disabling most appliances that require full current.

All these are done just to underscore the point that unless an operator ‘plays ball’ and abide by the Kawo PHCN staff’s extortionate demands, the operator’s business will surely be run down and crippled sooner rather than later by the regular and sudden electrical surges which are really contrived. It is not at all unusual in the Kawo district to see electric power being fully available in all places but for a small indistinguishable enclave. Were you to probe just a little further, one is bound to discover small businesses in the enclave – may be a ‘pure water’ distiller, tailors’ shop(s), welders’, business center or internet cafe etc - which are the actual target of some PHCN manager’s malevolent desire to extort money from the operators through artificially contrived sudden power surges whose intent is to deliberate cause maximum damage to one’s electrical installations and business equipment.

And then there is also a regular going around small businesses for contributions – ranging from N500= to any higher amount one can afford to part with, depending on the urgency with which one’s business is in need of the power – ‘to buy one or more parts for the transformer to be rehabilitated’ after it obviously would have been deliberately vandalized by no less than the actual staff of the PHCN, acting for and on behalf of the management of the district, into whose pockets such contributions actually end up. A particular staff who is said to be the favorite of the PHCN management in the district, has the unenviable epithet of ‘Sa su a duhu!’ (Hausa for Put them in darkness!) because he so callously and with abundant gusto plunges everyone in darkness just to extort as much as he could for his masters at the district management level of the PHCN from desperate operators of small scale businesses in the Kawo and Hayin Banki areas.

Indeed, in these two areas, it is always much safer not to own a metering device of any type, pre- or post-paid. This is because owning a metering device would automatically mean that you intend to opt out, and stop paying ‘your dues’ to the management and staff, in lieu of your supply being cut on the flimsiest of excuses.

Crazy meter readings are used as the baits for blackmail: an ordinary household can have a meter reading of hundreds of thousands in unpaid debts without computer printouts of the actual dates of the consumption. Failure to give the required cash down ‘payment in lieu’ of the ‘crazy bill’ will automatically result in a validation of the figures contained therein as a legitimate long-time debt owed to PHCN. Most often also and most terrifying of all is when the haughty manager of the district decides ‘to take the bull by the horns’ and write bills there and then with a borrowed pen as it were (borrowed from one of his staff that follow him on the rounds the same way a gang of area-boys follow their drunken ‘bosses’!!!), which he then directs to be issued under his watchful eyes to the alleged consumer by a lowly PHCN staff. Not ‘playing ball’ by paying cash in lieu of settling this kind of phony, crazy bill, can mean staying without power for God-knows-how-long. For there and then, a disconnection order will then be handwritten and executed by the manager himself. Even pre-paid meters which were proposed by some as a possible safety net against the ravages of the Kawo district PHCN management staff have proven to be no panacea at all. The latest shenanigan that prompted the writing of this piece was the spectacle of the manager of the district, single-handedly spearheading the disconnection of a premises which has installed a pre-paid metering device. The first issue raised directly by the manager himself, was that the meter must have been by-passed with illegal connections! On physically checking and confirming that nothing of the sort had happened, there followed a demand to be shown the latest credit purchase on the pre-paid meter. On being shown a credit of N3, 000= (Three Thousand Naira Only) for a two-bedroom flat with a single occupant only and bought less than a fortnight before (and other credits before then to wit), he then said the metering device must have been illegally obtained – otherwise, where was the receipt issued for it?

Then the bombshell of all: the Kawo PHCN manager took a final look at the pre-paid meter and then said before it was obtained, the premises must have been ‘hugely indebted’ and without settling the debts, the premises had to be disconnected there then. Otherwise all the former post-paid bills should be produced to prove him wrong. And so the house was disconnected!!! This was in spite of the fact that part of the requirements of obtaining the pre-paid metering device, was the then latest bills’ original print-outs to provide the basis of programming the device, even if such bills might have been the crazy types that are the wont of the Kawo district office of the PHCN.

Indeed it never occurred to this manager that the pre-paid meter couldn’t have possibly been fraudulently obtained, using a genuine name and a genuine address and correctly entered into the data base of the PHCN which can be accessed from any PHCN point-of-sale. Computing it seems, compounds the corrupt even in their attempt to void or avoid it.

The reality however is that most of the premises in Kawo are ‘dedicated cash cows’ for the district management of the PHCN. That is why they would never be expected and/or allowed to own a metering device of any kind pre- or post-paid.

Therefore unless one is able to post a profit by making use of generators endlessly, just as is done in areas where the power supply is much poorer than Kawo and Hayin Banki, one can forget being in business in these areas, regardless of the near regularity of the power supply, simply due to the inordinate corruption of the PHCN management and staff in these areas. No wonder then for example that there is not a single going internet café business in the whole of the Kawo and Hayin Banki districts of PHCN.

In contrast, in the southern districts of Kaduna, in spite of the much poorer PHCN power supply to the areas, they still boast of thriving internet cafes and other small scale businesses. Nobody so far seems to care, or even to raise questions regarding why this is so, not just with regards to internet café businesses, but even other small scale businesses such as milling, tailoring, welding etc all of which are diminishing by the day from the Kawo and Hayin Banki districts as a direct result of the ravaging corruption that PHCN staff and management engage in with absolute impunity in these areas.

It is indeed common knowledge among highly placed persons in Kaduna that the PHCN in the Kawo-Kaduna axis is indeed neck deep into politics. Thus, the staff are routinely sent out on sabotage errands to deliberately undo and disparage all the efforts being assiduously put in support of President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda in the most significant sector of all, namely, the power sector.

Other people however contend that the real and main target of the PHCN management in the Kawo district is the Vice President Namadi Sambo and his reported desire to contest the Presidency in 2015 - Kawo and Hayin Banki being the core of the Vice President’s Kaduna North constituency.

Howsoever the truth turns out to be, the fact is that disrupting the economic activities of individual voters in these areas and pauperizing them through a federal utility such as electricity, is the surest path to instilling political hatred for both President Goodluck Jonathan and the Vice President Namadi Sambo in a constituency that is very vital to the legitimacy of their civilian, democratic government. Eroding that legitimacy has always been the dream of those that seek to subvert democracy.

Thus, in spite of the constant power supplies presently in the Kawo and Hayin Banki areas of the Kaduna metropolis (which in itself is a success story of the Jonathan administration), the two areas constitute a grave-yard of small-scale businesses.

*Yusuf N. Ahmad is a journalist based in Kaduna