Engr. Cyprian O. Umeigbo was a former General
Manager with the Power Holding Company of
Nigeria (PHCN). He decided to bow out of the
organization when the unbundling issue came up,
to start his own company, Kanel Engineering
Limited. “That was the best decision to take as
far as I was concerned because I discovered
that the privatization programme being pursued
by government was more political than business
and I am glad I took the decision,” he said, in a
matter-of-fact manner. He spoke with Sunday
Sun in Enugu recently, making it clear, that “it
was the previous military regime that brought the
former NEPA down to its present sorry state.”
Excerpt.
Can we know a bit of your background so that
the public will understand who we are talking
with?
My name is Engineer Cyprian O Umeigbo, an
Electrical Engineer by training, a member of the
Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria
(COREN) and the Nigeria Society of Engineers
(NSE). I got into the former NEPA which later
became PHCN before it was privatized
immediately I left the University some years back
and rose to the position of a General Manager
before I voluntarily retired just as the
privatization was starting, to form my own
company, Kanel International Limited, an
electrical engineering company registered in
Nigeria with over 80 workers. I have been in the
practice of electrical engineering for close to 30
years now, our focus is on street lighting. That is
just the summary of my person.
Having worked with the former PHCN and rose
to the position of General Manager, what can
you say is the real problem of that organization
as an insider?
Thank you very much for this question because
once the name NEPA or PHCN is mentioned
before a journalist, this question must come up.
Really, the issue with the organization before the
unbundling came up is principally the problem of
power generation. That is the main issue. I am
talking as somebody who was involved in
different departments. I was in-charge of
distribution before I left. We have the problem of
insufficient generation capacity then and even
now. What that simply means is that we are
unable to generate enough power for the
consumer of electricity. That has led to the so
called “load shading”, irregular power supply and
all worth not. As long as this country cannot
generate power in excess of demand, the
problem will persist. I can tell you that once the
issue of generation is properly tackled, about 80
per cent of the challenges facing the
organization would have been taken care of.
But why has it not been possible to generate
enough power all these while in view of the
amount of money said to have been put into that
issue. It was alleged that the previous military
regime was the culprit but since 1999 when the
current democratic regime came into being,
nothing tangible has been achieved, why?
What really happened was that during the era of
the military, there was very poor funding for the
power sector. The sector was grossly neglected
in terms of funding. And it was an era you
cannot speak your mind, not democratic society
where you can say your mind and nothing will
happen to you. So, everybody bottled up in their
minds what was happening to NEPA then. And
that era lasted for quite some time. Throughout
that period, there was no investment in the area
of power generation, in fact, power as a whole
not just power generation. You know we have
generation, transmission and distribution
segments, there was no investment in any of this
and infrastructure began to collapse steadily.
You know, demand for power supply is a continu
ous thing and it was increasing while generation
was decreasing. So, where you have this
scenario where demand is rising steadily and
generation is either stagnant or decreasing, you
cannot predict what will happen with the in
frastructure. That was what exactly happened
during the military regime. When we now moved
to the civilian era, there was investment quite
alright but it was not sustained. A flash on the
pan investment in power sector will not address
the need of that sector because it requires a
steady investment over a long period to bring
about stability. During the period of steady
investment, we would have improved on our
generation capacity. By then all related
infrastructure like transmission would have re
ceived attention and distribution which is the last
lap of the chain would also have received a
boost. It is only then that we can sit back and
begin to reap the gains of steady power supply.
We know actually that there was the investment
era during the former President Obasanjo regime
but it was shot lived. The investment was
quickly swallowed up by the suppressed demand
that has been there. The only solution for steady
power supply is huge investment in that sector.
But some of the problems of that sector were
attributed to corruption. To many Nigerians,
corruption is the real issue not the investment
you are talking about because whatever comes
could easily be embezzled or stolen by the
corrupt officials, according to public opinion.
What is your view on this?
I will say that corruption is endemic in Nigerian,
nobody can deny this. But I don’t think that
corruption is very responsible to the state we are
today in the power sector. The power sector
demands huge investment, very huge and steady.
Mark my word, huge and steady because if you
make it a flash in the pan activity, you will not
get the desired result. But if you make it a
sustained investment and then huge, the result
will be very wonderful and everybody will see it
and testify that yes, there is improvement in the
power supply. As it is now, not much is
happening in that sector.
What of the current system where all the
generated power go to a central grid system and
redistributed to all, some people argue that it is
part of the problem because states or organiza
tions who can generate should be allowed to do
so and use what they generate the way it is
done in other parts of the world, what do you say
on this?
That is exactly where we are now because under
the unbundled system, states can now generate
and use their own generated power or market
the product and collect revenue. So, that aspect
has been taken care of by the new order in the
power sector after the unbundling of PHCN. But
like I said before, investment in the power sector
is not a child’s play. States that can venture into
it must have to look at their purse before
embarking on such project and complete it
because starting may not be the problem but the
ability to complete and commission is very
important.
What is your view about the unbundling of
PHCN, is it achieving the aim that prompted that
undertaking?
I think that privatization is quite good but the
spirit at which it was handled, I think, was faulty.
This is because it was more of political than
business interest. Even though in the eyes of the
common man, it has been unbundled but the true
picture is that the unbundling was not thorough.
This is in the sense that very big players in the
electricity business were not given adequate
opportunity to participate. There were shut-out
and it became an in-house political affair. That is
why today, there has not been serious
improvement in the sector. The power sector
was just handed over to people with political
connections and that is why not much
investment is going on in the sector after the so-
called unbundling. Before this time, government
came up to say that privatization will do this or
that like boosting power supply and opening up
new frontiers of business but that is not
happening there. But the policy is a good one
although the programme was not properly
implemented. There were flaws here and there
with so many interests coming into play. But
power sector is not something you politicize, it is
either you do it right and people see it or you
politicize it and people will also see the result.
They used power sector to play politics in the
past and everybody is now suffering it. Some
people just took over the sector through political
connections and now they can’t investment
much because they are not real.
Why is it that the new investors are not eager to
invest in metering but keep on extorting people
with the old method of estimation billing?
I must tell you what happened. The truth was
that those companies that acquired the un
bundled PHCN are not following the changes
given to them by the Nigeria Electricity Regu
lation Commission (NERC). The regulation is that
they are going to deploy meters to all their
customers because metering was identified as
one of the key problems in the power sector.
And they were given a mandate to procure
meters en-mass and meter every customer that
has such issue. But in this country, we are where
we are because of the corruption you just
mentioned. These companies are not keeping to
the rules given to them by NERC simply because
most of them have discovered that if they get
those metes and deploy them accordingly, that it
is going to affect their revenue. They have
discovered that billing customers on estimation
gives them more money than metering.
Therefore, they are reluctant to go into metering
to customers.
How did you come into doing work for Enugu
State government in the past 8 years in the area
of street lighting, was it a case of presenting a
proposal or your company was just invited?
What actually happened was that, when Bar.
Sullivan Chime came into office there was this
burning desire to lighten up Enugu city. He
wanted to revamp the street lights already on
ground in some places in Enugu. So, there was
this advertisement which was placed in the
dailies and my company bided and we were
eventually adjudged to be the winner after the
bid process. So, we were given the opportunity
to showcase what we can offer. We were given
some few roads where there had some existing
street lights which were not functional to revamp
and we did it successfully to the admiration of
the governor. Because of the commitment and
zeal we showed on the job, he was happy. You
know, street light is not just installing poles,
fittings etc, but the ability to ensure that the
light comes on at night and go off in the day
automatically. So, for the serious efforts we put
on the few roads given to us at the initial stage,
the government decided to give us more and
eventually we discovered that the more roads we
accomplished, the more we get. We have
sustained the contract up till now and we are
also doing the maintenance.
What was the reaction of the people when they
saw street lights on in the night?
If you know the city of Enugu before the street
lights came on, you would discover that the
capital was a ghost of itself especially at night.
Movement at night was very difficult and
economic activities were not there especially at
night because people were afraid to move about
along the dark roads and streets. Night life was
generally non-existent. But when we commenced
the street lighting project, it was like a magic.
People thought it was a flash on the pan kind of
thing, a political gimmick. They asked if it will be
sustained, or can it be true? But they greeted
the project with much joy. The kind of
enthusiasm and joy we saw on the faces of
people when we commenced the job was
tremendous especially people who had seen this
light work in the past.
What was your reaction when you heard that
Enugu State won award as the state with the
highest installed street lights in the capital in
Nigeria?
I congratulated the governor and his government
for the achievement and gave the glory to God.
But it did not come to me as a surprise because
as an electrical engineer who is involved, I know
that such award was possible. We have been
doing the street light work in Enugu with passion
and I am involved in virtually every aspect of the
job. I brought in my wealth of experience and
knowledge to bear on the job. I worked with the
former NEPA and later PHCN for many years and
retired voluntarily as a general manager before I
took charge of my own company. So, we were
really very happy and I am proud it is my
company that did the work that gave the state
the award.
In doing this work, what are the difficulties you
have faced?
We encountered so many difficulties but of
course, we know that for a project like this, there
would be some challenges. Part of the
challenges we had initially was vandalism. It was
like some people who were benefitting from the
darkness of the past don’t want a change. Such
people wanted to put a stop to what we were
trying to achieve, that is, to light up the state. In
other words, we met a stiff opposition initially
because when we install our cables, they would
go and remove them in the night. But through
the efforts of the law enforcement agents, our
company and members of the public, we were
able to gradually bring it under control. The other
problem which we have been experiencing and
still experience is reckless motorists who hit our
poles and damage the fittings and cause
disruption on the light. But after each damage,
we would go back to re-fix it and restore supply
to the affected street or road. This aspect is
very worrisome because it happens virtually
every day. It has been a major challenge
because in a week, we could record between 5-7
poles being knocked down. Maintenance is not
part of the agreement but we are pushing for
that and hopefully it will be resolved.
What has been the relationship between your
company and the Ministry of Works and
Infrastructure that supervises your work?
We have a cordial relationship with the Ministry.
The former Commissioner Engr. Goddy Madueke
is a wonderful person, very thorough in whatever
he does. He is very understanding too because
when we put the issue of maintenance before
him, he was sympathetic to our plight but it is
not what he could approve on his own. Apart
from the old roads, we are the one handling all
the new roads being built that government wants
street lights to be installed. The Commissioner is
a man who will not let go until the right thing is
done. He is a core professional who believes in
quality for any job he supervises. The quality of
work we do attest to that. Our fittings are
imported from Europe and not China. That is why
it has stood the test of time in the past 8 years.
It may interest you to know that each street light
has a dedicated transformer and a standby
generator. We do not depend on public
transformer and this is why the light is always on
in the night because whenever public power
supply goes off, the standby gen automatically
comes up, and when the public supply comes
back, the gen set automatically goes off. That
shows you how serious the state government
takes the project and how passionate we are for
the project. Governor Chime is someone who has
passion for the development of the state. From
the moment he came in, he was determined to
make a difference and you can see the
transformation which has taken place in the
state. In the whole South-East, no state has seen
the kind of infrastructure development that
Enugu state has witnessed with the government
of Sullivan Chime. He has done very well for the
state and we are proud to be part of the success
story especially in the area of road
infrastructure.
How do you cope with relocation of public
utilities before you start your work?
In our street light work, we don’t cut roads or
deface the tarred road which has been asphalted
before laying our cables. We use the modern
method called boring, we bore a part of the road
and create a tunnel through which we pass our
pipe and lay our cable across. That has been the
technology we are using in all the places we
work. This system endeared the former governor
of Enugu state, Sullivan Chime to us because we
didn’t destroy any part of the asphalted road in
other to do our street light work. Although the
technology is expensive but we chose to do that
to make us different from others who are our
competitors .When we lay our cables and we
didn’t cut the road, many people could not
understand but as I said, this is a new technique
to avoid destroying already asphalted road.