Nigeria: Erratic Fortunes for Health

Electronic Wire Harness Sola Ogundipe and Chioma ObinnaLagos AT the height of the electioneering campaigns in 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua, then an aspirant on the platform of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), made a solemn vow. His promise was to liberate Nigeria from the bogey of darkness and industrial stagnation that had been imposed by a thoroughly inept Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) - if only Nigerians would give him their mandate. "Our plan is to launch a national emergency programme on the power sector, because we believe that there cannot be any meaningful industrial development without steady power supply," the intending president had noted. Apparently, the strategy was straightforward. According to Yar'Adua, by declaring an immediate state of emergency on the nation's beleaguered power sector, he hoped to banish forever, and within six months, the specter of darkness occasioned by incessant power outages and power blackouts that had become the lot of the teeming millions of Nigerians. But one calendar year into the Yar'adua administration and several more months since the coinage of this now famous statement, Nigerians are still waiting for the President to keep his promise. If anything, the groans of the people from the erratic and chaotic supply of electricity have become louder. Electricity supply remains as epileptic as ever.