Falana: It’s illegal for FG to control power generation

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says the federal government’s control over power generation and distribution is unconstitutional.

Speaking at the launch of ‘Darkness to Darkness’, a report on the power sector by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in Lagos on Wednesday, Falana urged state governments to take advantage of the constitution which puts the provision of electricity on the concurrent list and provide power for their citizens.

“As the country has not had any return from the huge investment in the electricity sector the report has challenged the federal government to undertake a transparent probe of the power sector privatisation,” he said.

“After analysing the reasons for the abysmal failure of the electricity sector reform the report has demanded that the remaining public ownership of the 40 percent shares in the electricity companies be further privatised to avoid using government public resources to subsidise private entities. With respect, since the privatisation of public enterprises has resulted in the fraudulent sale of public assets to private individuals I am of the firm view that state governments, trade unions and other organised groups should be afforded the opportunity to buy the remaining 40 percent shares in the electricity sector.

“In view of the fact that electricity is in the concurrent legislative list and not in the exclusive legislative list in 1999 constitution the 36 state governments are advised to desist from applying for licences from the federal government to generate electricity outside the national grid.

“As the constitutional power of the national assembly to legislate in respect of electricity is limited to the establishment of electric power stations, the generation and transmission of electricity from one state to another state governments are constitutionally mandated to establish state electricity regulatory commissions to licence interested investors to participate and engage in off-national grid electricity generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in line with item 14 in the concurrent legislative list in the constitution.”

He said if individuals could generate and distribute electricity in their offices and homes it was illogical that state governments could not generate and distribute electricity to people in rural areas and other places not covered by the national grid.

“To free the electricity sector from the exclusive control of the federal government we call on the 36 state governments to be prepared to challenge the illegality of the several provisions of the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act. Therefore, I fully agree with the view expressed in the report that the vesting of rural electrification agency, rural electrification fund and rural electrification project in the hands of the federal government is patently unconstitutional,” he added.

“As the vesting of the power to generate and distribute electricity in the federal government outside the national grid is patently illegal and unconstitutional we call on state governments to set up state electricity regulatory agencies to generate and distribute electricity in all areas of the federation not covered by the national grid.”

In the report, SERAP said over N11 trillion had been sunk into the electricity sector since the return of civil rule in 1999.

But Reno Omokri, spokesman of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, described the report as a fruit of lazy research, saying the administration of the former president did not spend up to N400 billion on the power sector.