Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the Nigerian internationally celebrated author, did not miss out on the opportunity to ask the German Chancellor Angela Markel, about the deal within Nigerian government and Siemens to fix the country’s challenging electrical problem, in Chimamanda  words “Actually, I wanted to ask madam chancellor about her visit to Nigeria, I remember in 2019, our president, there was a lot of sought of exitement, because we were told that there had been a memorandum of understanding with German company Siemens. And we were told that Siemens had done this miraculous work in Egypt and even in Afghanistan I think, with electricity, and that Siemens would then fix our electrical problem, which has been the being of Nigeria really since independence, electricity, and we were told this had the full backing of Chancellor Markel and the German government, and were all very excited and it’s two years later and nothing has happened, and so I wanted to know if you know about it, ofcourse not holding you responsible for Siemens, but really we were told the German government had made this happen, I am just wondering why we still don’t have improved electricity?.

Chancellor Angela Markel’s responded by saying she was going to make a point of asking Siemens what happened, she also said there are several reasons and one of them has to do with funding, to which she acknowledged the mistakes made in financing the electricity project, she went on to say the Nigerian government demanded 50% local content being produced in the country, which she said is the general right approach but the project fails, when it has to do with solar panels or gas powered plants, because of the lack of an industrial base in the country to start with 40% 0r 50% local content, such a project can easily fail. Chancellor Markel promised to get more information for Chimamanda.

It is a shame that the issue of electricity has been a dent in the record of every Nigerian government and leader, the same issue which has always been their campaign slogan, which the various regimes have allocated billions of dollars to, but yet the country remains in total darkness. How does one want an engine to function without power supply? Would Nigerial ever move forward economically and otherwise, without an adequate electric power supply?.

Image source: https://www.dw.com