Banks can give out ATM on the spot, but PVCs are handed out as if it is a ticket to heaven.
Yet we spend trillions on INEC.
A country of particular concern!!!
This community transformer racket has to stop completely. It is daylight robbery disguised as community self-help, and the regulatory double standard is sickening.
Look at how the power sector works in Nigeria:
When a community transformer blows up, the DisCo goes deaf. You write letters, make calls, and nothing happens. Six months down the line, residents are suffocating in darkness, small businesses are dying, and fuel prices are draining everybody's pockets.
Out of sheer desperation, landlords gather, task every household 50k, 100k, or more, and scrape together 5 to 8 million Naira to buy a brand new transformer, buy heavy copper cables, and pay for poles.
The moment that equipment is energized, the DisCo claims it as company property. They add it to their network balance sheet, and within two weeks, they start distributing Band A and Band B bills. If you do not pay, they disconnect you with the ladder leaning on the very pole you bought with your own sweat.
How can a private, for-profit utility company take free capital equipment from struggling citizens, pay zero interest, give zero equity, and then charge those same citizens full price to use it?
If NERC mandated that customers who pay upfront for meters under the MAP scheme must be refunded their money over time through energy credits, why does the exact same logic not apply to transformers?
A meter costs 100k to 150k and you refund it via monthly energy units.
A transformer costs 6 to 10 million Naira funded by an entire street, and you pretend it was a charitable donation to a private entity?
This injustice has to end.
If a community is forced to step in and buy infrastructure because a DisCo failed its obligations, NERC should make automatic amortization mandatory:
Every single household on that street that contributed to buying that transformer should have their meter credited with monthly energy units until the full cost of the asset, cables, and installation logistics is completely paid back.
You cannot let private DisCos enrich their asset portfolios with crowd-funded community blood and then charge those same people premium tariffs for power. If DisCos want to own the asset, they must refund the people who paid for it.
Can the Lagos State Government do something about the thugs on our roads? No modern city can function properly when the government appears to have lost control of miscreants.
Cities like Paris and London encourage people to create content that showcases the city.
In Lagos, citizens and visitors cannot even record freely in public without fearing harassment from thugs, while the government looks the other way.
Fuel is gradually climbing towards N2,000 per litre, even Buhari despite his poor regime left fuel for about N210 before Tinubu's govt took over. In less than four years, this man's govt has more than tripled the price, with nothing meaningful in terms of development to show for it. Every sector has gone from bad to worse, but some persons are still out there making excuses and letting sentiments get in the way.