Electricity bill: The brazen budgeting of N8bn for sensitisation

BY UGOCHUKWU UGWUANYI

With public officials’ impulsive indulgence in all manner of wasteful and corruption-prone expenditures, Nigerians seem to have become inured to the devil-may-care squander-mania that characterises government dealings. A good number of citizens were however jerked from this state of suspended animation by the insensitivity of an austerity-advocating government seeking to spend N8 billion on public enlightenment towards the timely payment of electricity bills! This became common knowledge on Monday when the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu appeared before the national assembly to defend his ministry’s 2025 budget.

Highlighting the need for many Nigerians to understand that electricity is not a free resource, the minister said his ministry is poised to conduct the campaign through multiple media platforms, including social, digital, and print, to effectively reach Nigeria’s diverse population of over 200 million. The furore generated by the planned spending shows that the country has hit a new nadir when it comes to the frittering of public resources. It was so absurd that even social media couldn’t resist trending the proposal.

You can be sure that the public officials who initiated the move would be wondering why the fuss. The said sum is to them a chicken feed! This is what you get when the drivers of government are starkly disconnected from the lowly passengers.

Be that as it may, if indeed there is no such thing as bad publicity, then the government of President Bola Tinubu has no business proceeding with that wasteful expenditure. This is because the mind-bugging proposition has got enough traction and reactions for every electricity consumer to understand that it is important for them to be faithful in paying their bills. Notwithstanding that the feedback has poured in as flaks, what matters is that the aim has inadvertently been achieved.

As it is with news, weird stories (which the N8 billion for sensitisation can be classified as) would always travel far. Beyond social media, you only need to imagine all the various beer parlours and newspaper stands across the country where the matter was a topic of discussion to understand how “sensitised” Nigerians now are. They can now see the need for them to pay their electricity bills, not minding how astronomical it gets, how low their disposable incomes are, or even if the supply remains epileptic.

The government wants them to be great customers of the electricity distribution companies so much so that it is eager to spend N8 billion of possibly borrowed funds to tell consumers what they already know. Come to think of it, why is the power ministry dabbling into discos palaver when it should be engrossed with tackling weightier issues like the persistent power grid collapse?

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) referenced this in its response to the planned spending by the ministry of power. In a statement issued by their president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, the workers “express our profound disappointment and outrage at the absurd quest for allocation of about N8 billion in the 2025 federal budget for the so-called ‘sensitization of Nigerians on the need to pay electricity bills’… Our position on this is clear; we will not stand idly by while public funds are wasted in the name of governance.” The use of the pronouns “we” and “our” in the statement indicates that the entire members of the NLC are now aware that the government wants them to properly pay their electricity bills. They must have transmitted this knowledge to their gist partners. Given this vast circulation, who then does Minister Adelabu want to sensitise with N8 billion?

Actually, not all electricity consumers need this orientation in the first place. The user whose light goes off the instant units in their prepaid meter run out would not need any prodding to do the needful. If they choose not to, then it’s apparently because the recharge of their electricity bills isn’t top on their scale of preference. One therefore wonders how even an N8 billion worth of sensitisation will make our friend leave other pressing needs for electricity recharge, which they can do without at that moment.

It has emerged that the government wants Nigerians to pay their electricity bills. The obscenity of the amount being proposed for the purpose has made the news travel far and wide. The free virality of the intention is such that any attempt to bankroll it would amount to a sheer waste of resources, worse than the thinking behind the inclusion of the bizarre line item in the 2025 budget. From all indications, the issue has assumed a life of its own, with more people getting to know the importance of paying their electricity bills. This is propelled by people trying to make sense of the propriety of appropriating N8 billion for the same.

To better appreciate how humongous, provocative, and inappropriate Adelabu’s spending plan is, consider that the total allocation to the Ministry of Information and National Orientation in the same 2025 budget is N8.9 billion with N1.2 billion as the capital component. Yet, this is the ministry with the apparatus, personnel, and parastatals to execute what the Ministry of Power requires N8 billion for; that’s assuming without conceding that there’s an actual need for such sensitisation.

Who did this to Nigeria? Who knows how many such untoward expenditures have been tucked into the 2025 budget? As the heads of ministries, departments, and agencies come to defend their proposals, National Assembly members have their work cut out for them. They must be patriotic and diligent in carrying out what they were elected and paid to do.

The budgeting system is believed to be at the heart of the pervasive corruption in public service. Civil society watchdogs like BudgIT and SERAP should therefore not rest on their oars for the sake of the country and citizens. This is the worst time for Nigerians to hear such disheartening misappropriation of the nation’s commonwealth. An impoverished populace who are gearing up for the 50 percent hike in telecom tariffs should be spared the agony, particularly when their pockets are yet to recover from the government’s removal of subsidies in the same electricity sector.

Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi, a Lagos-based journalist, can be reached on X via the handle: @sylvesugwuanyi.