The New
Africa-Nigeria
Until April 2014, the largest economy in the Continent of
Africa was The Republic of South Africa (RSA). Then without any intentional
planning, doing, or calculation, Nigeria with a population of about 150 million finds
herself ahead of RSA with a population of about 44 million. One would ask how
did that happened or what happened; considering the fact that, 20 years ago,
you can NOT mention Nigeria in the same breath with RSA when you are talking
economy.
Do not get me wrong, there is no politics without corruption
anywhere in the universe. Even in the USA, we once had Mr. Cold Cash, and
Africa is no different, but Mr. Jacob Zuma seems to be haunted by more
corruption allegations than corruption itself.
This blog is about energy (electricity to be exact) so lets
get back to the topic. Nigeria is a county awash in oil, but where electricity
generating and it supply or distribution (no pun intended) is concern, Nigeria so reliable (no pun intended) that
9 out of 10 homes or businesses have their own generator or generators. You can
generate all the power in the world, but if you can NOT get it to where it is
needed, you have nothing; and Nigeria seems to be failing at both.
Now, Nigeria is banking on getting power from The Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) for her own use and exporting some to other unfortunate
West African neighbors. The source of this not yet available electric power is
the Grand Inga (and I wrote a little bit about this in 2008). Things still have
not changed since I wrote the last piece back in 2008. The DRC is still under producing
with the smaller Inga 1 and 2. If you canNOT take care of a baby or a little child,
how do you plan on taking care of an adult.
Is Nigeria trying to buy a ‘pig in the poke’ or counting
somebody’s ‘chicken before they are hatched’?
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