The words of Great West, in the piece: “Beware the Pitfalls of Complacent Leadership,” ring loudly as I prepare to write this piece. “Complacent leaders become comfortable with their current practices and resist challenging the norms. This can result in a decline in innovation, workforce morale and overall organisational progress,” he writes. These words are more fitting to describe what Nigerians are currently experiencing in a monopolistic governance that the Abuja-controlled federal government and her state-provided services represent. Monopoly with all its trappings: complacent leaders, hesitation in embracing change, contentment with status quo, stagnation, frittered opportunities, poor performances and below par productivity – to mention just a few. One by one, they fittingly describe the state of governance in Nigeria.
Besides its capacity to interfere negatively with unrestricted and very competitive free market economies, monopoly has a way of hurting the people at the receiving end by unleashing inefficiency, lack of innovation, poor service delivery and higher prices of goods and services.
Though monopolies do enjoy economies of scale with capacity to churn out mass quantities of products wherever they are given free hand to operate by the state, the greatest undoing of monopolistic organisations is their lack of empathy to people’s plight. From power supply to energy production and provision, monopolies in third world countries love unleashing chaos and pandemonium. This is the lot of Nigeria and Nigerians for decades now. If it is not tough, rough and noisy, with mayhem and bedlam to boot, no one can get essential services in Nigeria except the privileged politically-exposed who will receive theirs as their rights and for free. It is like those who created the entity called Nigeria agreed among themselves that the country’s features and structure must be crafted and lumped in noise making, with leadership that is drenched with mental and intellectual poverty.
Since May 29, 2023 that the now notoriously famous pronouncement, ‘subsidy is gone’ was made, Nigerians have not known economic peace, with almost all wallowing in economic turmoil. Immediately the deregulation of the energy and power sectors was mooted, and knowing that such a move will trigger the transitioning of the country’s economy from welfarist to free market operations, it is expected of a responsive government to first put measures in place to ensure that her people are not thrown into chaos, untold hardships and chaos before the eventual deregulation take-off date.
But false hope had been raised with the idea of a privately-owned refinery becoming operational before the eventual June 2023 energy sector deregulation set-date; and when the former President Buhari went to commission the plant, May 2023, everyone got sucked into the belief that the government is alive to her responsibility. A year after, with shifting goalposts and unreliable promises, Nigerians in their millions are still wallowing in ‘no fuel, no power’ mire. Even the state-owned refining plant scheduled to commence operations latest December 2023 has not shown any flick of hope midway into another year.
Essential products such as water, electricity and energy are necessities whose provisions and prices are to be made so affordable to the people. Since they are very fundamental to human existence and they play huge roles in human productivity, making the prices of these essencos so low for people is what every government must see to. That these all-important basic commodities are in the hands of state-controlled monopolies are not the problem per se but for the fact that in Nigeria since 1970s that an energy production and supply began operations as a monopoly and they became institutionalised in 1977, they have been poorly operated, turning logic on its head. Rather than offering values, it has been tales of woes and calamity, with epileptic service delivery saturated with gargantuan corruption.
Nigerians have never witnessed a month free from petrol supply hassles since June 2023. From queuing for hours before they could get to buy to skyrocketing black market prices occasioned by supply shortages. This terrible situation has been causing untold hardship for millions that are already struggling to find their feet in a straggling and terrible economic crisis. Since the deregulation of the market and the advent of a free market economy, it is a serious problem to continue to have a bulk-passing and very unserious state-controlled monopolies that are churning out inefficient, slapdash and propaganda every now and again.
When corporations or unbundled entities still operate as a state-backed monopoly, they most times hurt consumers who are left with no alternatives as they impose dictated prices of goods and services despite poor-quality rendering of these products and services they provide for the consumers. Since they lack stiff competition, they are not challenged to be more innovative. In view of this, there is a need to urgently address the lacklustre performances of the utility companies in Nigeria. An urgent stop needs to be put to the haphazard and very shameful importation of fuel and the poor power supply. It is no longer funny that Nigerians will continue to wait endlessly for permanent solutions to be found to these money-guzzling abnormalities. Enough is enough.
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. Ola Emmanuel is a business planning consultant and founder of Leacent Incorporated Trustees, a network of entrepreneurs and group of cooperatives. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates at leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business’ is the latest of the books authored by him. Tel.: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (WhatsApp only).
