by JESS WORTH
Nigerian activist Ken Henshaw PHOTO/© Patrick Kane
Sitting in the Oxford sunshine, Ken Henshaw is telling me how proud he is of the solar panel on his Port Harcourt house. ‘In Nigeria, you are your own government and energy company!’ he jokes, describing the lengths to which he has gone to connect his home to a power source. He also had to buy a pump to access clean water, and runs his own sewage system. ‘The government has abdicated all responsibility at the local level,’ he explains, allowing oil companies in his home region – the Niger Delta – to step in and buy off polluted communities by providing necessary schools and health centres.
Ken knows he is one of the lucky ones – he can afford to generate his own power. The vast majority of Nigerians are dependent on national energy supplies, which is a desperate position to be in right now.
Ken is in Britain to challenge the Department of International Development (DFID) over its support for Nigeria’s recent disastrous energy privatization. ‘The Nigerian government has gone for the worst form of privatization available,’ he explains. ‘It is a story of corruption, greed and ineptitude. They sold off public assets to their friends, who had no expertise and no intention of actually providing power. They laid off over 14,000 workers and had to use more than half of the $3 billion they sold it for to compensate them.’
As a result, the 67 per cent of Nigerians who live below the poverty line are finding themselves unable to access electricity at all. Ken lays out for me the 3 big problems with the new privatized power system. First, tariffs have increased sharply in the 4 years since the sell-off was agreed. Second, there are new fixed charges just for being connected, even if there is no power available – essentially a regressive tax on the poor and energy-efficient which has already sparked protests. Third, Nigerians are not charged for how much electricity they actually use. Their bills are estimated and they must pay whatever they are asked to.
‘It’s a major crisis that has resulted in what little energy is available being channelled to the rich suburbs,’ concludes Ken. The poor majority, who used to have pretty good if unreliable access, are back in the dark.
New Internationalist for more