Power to the People: Developing Electrical Co-Ops to Improve Stability in Nigeria.

摘要

Nigeria has long recognized the need to support entrepreneurial business growth to reduce its severe levels of poverty and improve socioeconomic stability. Attempts to provide this support have been largely ineffective, due in large part to the poor state of Nigerian electrical power infrastructure. In 2010, Nigeria renewed its emphasis on improving its power sector, including privatization of the formerly state-run system, but this plan requires several adjustments to optimize its ability to increase socioeconomic stability. Nigeria must increase its focus on improving electrical service in the North, the area of highest instability. With the predominance of the Northern population residing in rural areas, the privatization of the existing state-run electrical distribution companies into commercial activities will not deliver the expected results. Implementation of co-operative associations (co- ops), modeled after U.S. Rural Electrical Associations, would be more effective at expanding electrical service into rural areas. Co-ops are grassroots, community-based organizations that would fit well in the Nigerian socioeconomic context, and they possess several advantages over purely commercial distribution companies. The U.S. government and U.S. Africa Command can assist Nigeria in developing co-ops by leveraging expertise from the U.S. National Rural Electrification Cooperative Association and brokering agreements with U.S. electrical equipment manufacturers. Now is the time to enact these recommendations, as Nigeria currently is re-establishing its Rural Electrification Agency, has just broken ground on a new national power training institute, and is completing the transition of the existing distribution companies to private control in 2013.