olorunsogo power plant

When will we have uninterrupted power supply in Nigeria?
Ghana that was devastated years ago came back and put their house in order concerning electricity. Why is Nigeria's situation different?
Several billions of US Dollars have gone into the generation and distribution of electricity in Nigeria but nothing has come out of it. Three years ago, the Committee Chairman of power in the Federal House of Assembly and his committee members set up a probe panel. At the end of it, the hunter became the hunted. The then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan decided with the late President Yar Adua to go round the Country with the report and succeeded in discrediting Hon. Elumelu and his team. Hon Elumelu was able to expose the rut in the handling of the contracts for power by the former head of State Olusegun Obasanjo. Almost USD18M worth of contracts were awarded for building of new thermal stations, upgrading of old ones and general overhauling of the power infrastructure in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the house had to suspend deliberations on the report and Elumelu and his team charged with corruption. The probe ended there but the issues raised are still unresolved and electricity not available for the common man. Take the case below as an example.
The Olorunsogo Power Plant in Ogun State was commissioned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on May 27, 2007. The Power Plant had an installed capacity of 335Megawatts. The power plant was built by the Chinese firm called SEPCO ELECTRIC Power Construction Corporation. The project was financed through a loan facility from China and Nigeria. The Chinese provided 65percent of the funding and Nigeria provided the rest.
The installed capacity of the plant is 335MW but so far only 80MW capacity is utilised. This is because the 255 mega watts capacity is lost in translation from Chinese to English and vice versa. Out of the eight turbines at the station, only two turbines were functioning since the plant was commissioned over five years ago. Why only 80mws working? The manual that accompanied the plant from China is in Chinese language and our Nigerians Engineers do not understand the language.
Recently, the Federal Government sets up a fact finding delegation which visited the Olorunsogo power plant and were told by the Acting Chief Executive Mohammed ALMU that only two turbines were working. He further lamented that the Chinese labelled all critical areas of the plant in their language and the manual also written in Chinese. This makes setting up and maintaining the plant very difficult for Nigerian Engineers.
Why did Nigerian Government accepted the components of the plant when it was shipped in with Chinese language? The Central Bank stated in their manual of operations that all imports into the country must be labeled in English. Custom was supposed to reject that consignments. SO what happened? Even when the Chinese were installing the plants why didn't someone requested for a manual in English language then? Why were Nigerians Engineers not trained and taught Chinese language before or after production? So many questions but no answers.
The other issue is spare parts. To quote the acting MD of the power plant,

"On the issue of spare parts, at the time of handing over of this project, they were supposed to give us two years running spare parts. But what they gave us were just small spare parts. That is why we are having serious problems. And anytime we contact them, they will promise to bring the parts. And up till now, they have not given us any. And any time we have a problem and we want to go with them, they will refuse to go with us and abandon the place"

As far as i am concerned, the only answer is eradication of corruption. Until we eradicate corruption from our public service, power generation and distribution will continue to be a problem. I pray the current Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji will wake up and do something.