By Miftaudeen Raji

The Nigerian government has been urged to alleviate the pressure of losses within the manufacturing sector. 

The Chief Executive Officer, Magnate Communications, Aliu Mohammed, in an exclusive interview with Vanguard, stressed the need for the government to nip the losses in the bud.

The chief cause of the losses in the manufacturing sector is power. Nigeria currently generates 4,000 MegaWatts, almost the same quantity of electricity generated in the cities of Nairobi and Abidjan, respectively.

However, the Federal Government said it planned to ramp up power generation to a target of 6,000 Megawatts by the end of 2024.

With the current challenge of power in Nigeria, manufacturers have resorted to diesel as an alternative.

Some months back, diesel sold between  N1,500, and N1,600. Lately, however, a drum of diesel was selling for thousands of Naira (1, 000).

To get one drum of diesel, containing about  25 or 30 liters, that’s a lot of money, said Mohammed, a Former Editor of the Daily Times.

Apparently, no sector of the Nigerian economy can ignore power. Power is needed in all manufacturing sectors. Unfortunately, Nigeria is still grappling with inadequate power or almost none.

In his area which has been classified as Area D or G, Mohammed’s estate has not had power for almost one month, leaving residents of the estate to run on generator.

“They’ll bring it at night for one hour and take it away. Even if you are on half a million Naira salary and you have to buy petrol every day,  you don’t know how much it costs to buy a liter of petrol now.  You should have to buy diesel to power your generator. You know how much that is not adding to your income, it is taking a lot away from you,” he said.

Mohammed said the situation is the same thing with the manufacturing companies. “All the profits that they should have made have been taken away by the purchase of diesel, low-poor fuel and oil.” 

Citing the same situation in the aviation sector, The former Editor,  Concord Newspaper complained of shortage of aviation fuel, saying the price of aviation fuel has gone up drastically, so much that to go from Lagos to Abuja now and come back, you need N400,000, which shouldn’t be.

The expert said Nigeria needs to get it right in the energy sector, and then ensure that the country moves forward. 

He said, “If you travel abroad and you are landing in most of these countries, you see lights and you are excited that you are landing in a beautiful country. But you can’t go to Lagos, because you can’t see the beauty of Lagos; if it is very early in the morning, everywhere would be so dark.

“I feel sad every time I’m flying into Nigeria from any part of the world  and you get to Lagos, you see darkness, you get to Abuja, you see darkness. It’s not projecting the image of this country as a progressive and developing country. We are the giant of Africa, maybe on paper.  

“But in reality, we are not moving like the giants of Africa. Go to Ghana, you fly into Ghana at night, fly into Rwanda very early in the morning. You see the brightness, the beauty of the country,  the city of Rwanda. You see how beautiful it is. But you are flying into Nigeria, you are bringing in investors and you are with them and everywhere is dark,” he said.

The former Editor related a scenario of a time when he brought people from Spain and they were to go to Benin for their waste recycling project.  

He told them to fly into Benin, but they want to get to Nigeria. He obliged and put vehicles on the road at Lagos-Ibadan before it was repaired. The road at the time was bumpy.  

The foreign visitors said, “What is happening?” “I said, no, this is a war relic, that we are trying to reconstruct the road. How will I explain to them that my government has neglected all these roads over the years? I just simply saved myself that explanation,” Mohammed replied.

They said, “you had a war in Nigeria?’ I said, yes, we had a civil war in Nigeria; because I was not ready for a very long discussion in the process you have to run down your government,  you have to run down your country. I wasn’t ready for that.”

He was going to protect the needs of the country so that the things that they came to do in Nigeria could sail smoothly.  “We got to the stage of costing that we started adding generators to the budget.  I said, why do you need so much for generators? You don’t have light in your country?  

“I said, no, we don’t have light,  but we may need them as backup. It tells you the kind of explanation, the processes you have to go through if you are bringing in foreigners to come and work in Nigeria. For that single reason, they refused to come here, I have been a victim of that power failure in Nigeria.”

The CEO expressed worry over the daily collapse of power transmission in the country. “The energy generation collapses as if it is like a pack of cards. It is embarrassing,” he said.

As part of ways to proffer lasting solutions to the challenges faced by manufacturers, Mohammed, however, urged the government and all stakeholders to ensure that all the companies that we have in Nigeria are producing at the rate of 50%. 

According to him, manufacturers need to produce at least 50% capacity to be able to make some level of profit. “If you produce below 50%, you are not doing anything,” he said.

He said most companies are relocating to Ghana, and the Republic of Benin, the neighboring nations to Nigeria.

“What have we done wrong as a country that we can’t have constant power supply? We should get it right, for God’s sake.”