National grid has collapsed again! A common saying in Nigeria. A phenomenon that underscores the country’s backwardness. An expression of inefficiency. A statement of fact that paints the portrait of underdevelopment. Nigeria must be the only nation on earth where the citizens are exposed to jargons and terminologies that their counterparts in other parts of the world never heard about because they shouldn’t. They only get the right services without the pain of learning to pronounce or understand the technical jargons of the technologies that drive the services.

National grid is one of such slangs. And it’s okay if you don’t understand what it means, because in reality, you shouldn’t. You are to enjoy steady supply of electricity like your counterparts in other parts of the world without having to be schooled in the technicalities that produce such service. But this is Nigeria where citizens provide own power, water, roads, and more. We have no choice than to get into the classroom and take some lectures on national grid. Engineers say it is the entire body of infrastructure including wires that take power from where it is generated to where it is consumed: offices, homes, just everywhere there is electricity supply. When those connected infrastructure malfunction, power distribution is impaired. And it can collapse to as low as zero, they say.

In the case of Nigeria, the collapse has hit ground zero on several counts. It has collapsed six times this year alone. The collapse is even getting theatrical, appearing and disappearing like an Ogbanje (the mystical spirit that comes and goes in a being). The national grid has been so accustomed to collapsing such that it is now getting comical in some weird way. Like the one that collapsed on the evening of Monday, October 14. The grid collapsed about 6:18 pm on Monday, causing power generation to drop from 3.87 gigawatts at 5 pm to 3.56GW at 6 pm and bottomed out at 0.00GW at 7 pm and 8 pm. And while the authorities rallied to revive it, it collapsed again less than 24 hours after the initial collapse. Imagine the theatrics of a grid. Only an Ogbanje-possessed being has such surreal flair of dying and living almost simultaneously. It was a case of dying, living and dying again in 24 hours. A feat!

Engineers also say that grid collapse happens due to various factors such as technical faults within the infrastructure value chain, insufficient generation, transmission deficiencies, overloading of the grid beyond its capacity, among other factors. Too many lingoes for electricity consumers to learn and assimilate when all they wanted was plain electricity like their counterparts in South Africa (they call Nigeria Generator Republic), Egypt, even Ghana (which now taunts Nigeria on account of her inability to sustain steady power).

National grid collapsed 99 times in eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari, according to a report by The Guardian, averaging 12 times per year, or once in every month.

So, what’s the puzzle in electricity generation and distribution that Nigeria cannot crack? The military failed. Obasanjo, despite his pledges and promises, failed. Presidents Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria’s worst president so far) failed. President Tinubu is still an ongoing experiment. Nigerians hope he gets it right.

Well, the puzzle is not in the grid. It’s in the greed. There is pervasive greed that fuels corruption in every national transaction in Nigeria. It is that national greed that must collapse for the national grid to stay alive and serve the people. For as long as national greed continues to flourish, the national grid will continue to relapse into death and life mode intermittently like a being possessed by the Ogbanje spirit.

The West has national grid. Asians enjoy steady electricity served through their complex national grids. Ditto for African countries. South Africa, Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Angola, etcetera. But none of them experiences incessant national blackout like Nigeria. The difference is that Nigeria has afflicted its national grid with the virus called greed. Billions of dollars have been budgeted and spent(?) to generate and distribute electricity nationwide since Independence in 1960. Much of that money was stolen, sometimes in the most brazen and primitive manner. Greed eats up the grid. In local parlance, ‘greed pass grid.’

Nigeria has signed more MoUs with global power companies than any country. Nigeria is among the few privileged countries in the world blessed with all the sources of electricity: Thermal, hydro, wind for windmill, gas, coal, good splash of sunshine for solar energy. Nigeria has all the natural elements used to produce electricity. Copper, aluminum, lithium and uranium are all in Nigeria in commercial deposits. But greed won’t let the people enjoy the benefits of these God-given resources. Nigeria, alone, can power Africa but for greed. The same greed that has rendered the national grid comatose, forcing Nigerians to create their own personal and family grids.

Because of greed, Nigerians spent N16.5 trillion in 2023 alone to buy diesel, petrol, and generators just to generate their own electricity to power their homes and businesses. That’s huge cash spent on self-help; on a commodity that the government ought to provide through partnership and structured regulation of the private sector. The implication of this is that both capital and profit of some businesses went into electricity. Lack of electricity has both commercial and health implications; not forgetting the social consequence of crime and insecurity.

Yet, every Nigerian leader, from presidents to governors, make frequent sorties overseas in search of foreign investors, a pastime that has become a conduit for jamborees and for funneling Nigerian money into bank vaults in foreign lands. There’s one pragmatic way to stop the national grid from collapsing. Kill the greed; end the corruption pandemic in the power sector and ley the national grid breathe.