First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
No week passes without me thinking about the young people of Nigeria who in the quest for a better life take to the road.
Like space rockets in the Kennedy space centre, laden with that combustible fuel called hunger, they lift off in hope of acquiring an escape velocity. Checking out, bursting loose, “ja’ing” and “commoting” are some of the descriptive terms used for this exodus of hunger.
It is a hunger for what light and illumination bring to a society namely, law and order, water, light, food and adequate housing. To that, add healthcare provision, welfare facilities and general oyoyo (enjoyable quality of life) for man is a social animal after all. With Nigeria getting tougher by the week and the animals overtaking the citizens in social animality for want of a better word, more people have joined the rat race to leave. The social activities of rats, herds of cows, goats, jackals, snakes, monkeys in Nigeria are well documented so no need to recall that here but it suffices to say that the animals have an enviable social life and they make viral news all the time.
So, like Archimedes, I was in my bathtub when a beam of light came through the blinds and hit me on the right side of the head. Eureka!
I have found out a way to reduce this mass exodus of young Nigerians by 90%. Like all things great and deserving of the Nobel Prize, the idea looks elementary at first glance but with time the implications of this breakthrough thinking will become clear.
24-hour light! Ingenious for sure. If the electricity is always on, the youth will have an instant disinterest with Chad and Niger for onward movement into Libya. Where they journey through hostile terrain to the shores of the Mediterranean to board the night boat that sails across to Italy in pitch darkness as they try to avoid the custom and naval officers patrolling the sea.
24-hour light in Nigeria will do some of the following:
Reduce hunger by ensuring adequate food supply
A sales manager for Danfoss, the Danish Global Giant, Mr Youssef Zitouni, claimed in 2016 that 80% of Nigerian harvest goes to waste compared to the average of 33% for the rest of the world.
The road from the farm to our plates is paved with gold chains. No electricity means no fridges. No fridges and you get waste.
Imagine if the waste of food is eliminated with refrigeration. The price of food goes down and there are jobs created.
The slow movement of cattle across the country for grazing and then slaughtering would be reduced if the beef is processed and frozen centrally and distributed in refrigerated lorries or train coaches.
The same applies to fish and other seafoods; the lack of a cold chain means waste could occur. However, these food items can be dried thereby prolonging their shelf life.
Reduce frustration
In addition to an empty stomach, a dark hot house devious of air flow and abundance of mosquitoes means the nerves are on edge. When the phones have died, and there is no television to distract the youth from reality they dream of a better life abroad. These dreams occurring in synchronisation with the noisy electrical generators of the well-off neighbours who tend to direct the exhaust of their machines in the direction of the frustrated.
Well, a full stomach, air conditioning and a nice movie will not solve youth unemployment; it will at least reduce frustration levels.
Increase self- development
Constant electricity will mean people would consume more entertainment content but it would also mean more books will be read and more time would be spent watching online educational material.
Reduce production costs of operating industries
Many industries are burdened with the cost of generating their own electricity which makes their products less competitive. It then becomes cheaper to import, thereby killing local industries and jobs.
Looking at the G20 countries, you observe that they all have electricity around the clock and their youths are not all day dreaming of emigrating. In today’s world, a country’s economy cannot grow in darkness and neither can job creation drives work without electricity.
An easier domestic existence
I recall a certain egusi soup I had in my freezer for about eight months. I even travelled abroad and returned to find the soup exactly as I had left it. Men and women without a steady power supply may have to shop and cook more often. Modern houses are designed with electricity in mind and when the country’s leaders do not provide electricity to the populace, then life gets harder and the general frustration quotient rises.
It feels strange to be talking about electricity in 2018 but that is West Africa for you. When I visited Morocco four years ago they had twenty-four-hour power supply as we call it. That is a smaller country with a smaller economy compared to Nigeria.
This sorry state in Nigeria simply boils down to human rights abuse. Every citizen has a right to electricity especially if the government can afford its provision. The wastage of public funds over the years and failure to invest in the energy needs of the country means that all the past leaders of the country should be on trial at The Hague for Human Rights abuses. Corruption denies people their rights and generates hunger which drives the youth and daring citizens to seek refuge in places they have no legal rights to be in.
