Energy is Life

Nigeria exports over 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. Yet last May, the country went through an energy crisis. For a short period of time only five of their 23 power plants were functional, meaning that the country reported a severe reduction of electricity available on the national grid.

“In the cities and towns, normally when this happens, people who can afford generators turn them on, but at the same time that the megawatts dropped we couldn’t get fuel or diesel to power our generators. So there was really no power in Nigeria,” explained Hafsat Abiola, Founder and President of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, a Nigerian not-for-profit organisation.

With hospitals affected, factories and schools unable to operate, and food starting to spoil, Nigerian cities were one day from shutting down. “This issue actually woke me up,” said Abiola “I realised that energy is life.”

Abiola has been working in development for many years. She has seen first-hand the problems that rural areas face, but experiencing daily life without energy led her to fully appreciate the ramifications of this. 

“If the cities and towns of Nigeria were one day from shutting down, because we had no energy access. Then essentially the rural areas in Nigeria are always shut down. They are not even active, they are not alive.” For Abiola this needs to change: “if we want to transform Africa it has to begin in rural areas.”

Abiola believes that the answer lies in bringing renewable energy to rural areas. Although Nigeria produces large quantities of oil, it is priced internationally and locals are unable to compete with foreign market prices. “The Nigerian purchasing power of our people is not equal to the United States so in the past our government was subsidising the cost of oil in Nigeria,” she explained. 

In the following video, Abiola discusses further the problems of oil and corruption in Nigeria. 

Nigeria has the conditions to use biomass, hydropower, wind and solar energy. But today it represents only 13% of their total electricity generation. The Nigeria Renewable Energy Master Plan aims to increase this to 36% by 2030, with 75% of electrification by 2025. However, this doesn’t come without its own challenges. 

Setting up renewable energy is quite expensive, even in the developed world. Therefore it takes some time before it starts turning a profit. The Master Plan has taken this into account by implementing incentives such as halting import duties for renewable energy technologies. But Abiola believes that the real need lies in “longer-term financing for entrepreneurs who want to use renewable energy.” For now the plan suggests the design of “tax credits, capital incentives and preferential loan opportunities” but nothing has been implemented yet.

Elsewhere in Africa, Philips has been investing in community based care. In the following video, Jan-Willem Scheijgrond, Philips Global Head of Government Affairs, explains how using solar energy to power a clinic has helped to sustainably provide better healthcare, while also creating a community hub. This is a model that could be replicated to improve the quality of life in rural areas.