Nigeria’s rural and peri-urban populations continue to suffer from unreliable and expensive energy supply. According to a 2020 report by the World Bank, the access rate to electricity in the country stands at 55.4 percent with a big gap between urban and rural areas, a ratio of about 83.9 percent versus 24.6 percent.
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – Abuja is not immune to this worrisome electricity supply inadequacy that confronts many parts of the country.
Abuja at different times had faced frequent total power outages and epileptic supply often attributed to insufficient generation capacity, transmission and distribution challenges, as well as gas supply constraints.
Multiple times, the national grid had collapsed affecting every State of the Federation including the nation’s capital city. One major concern to most residents of Abuja aside from other infrastructures like roads, is the need to provide constant street lighting to the city – such that could support safety, security, and visibility during nighttime.
Ordinary, something basic as the provision of street lights in a city like Abuja should be a litmus test of the capacity of any public official in charge of the capital. Sadly, however, previous administrators in the territory have failed in this regard yet, holding their shoulders high that they had performed in delivering on infrastructure in the city.
A resident of the Garki area who has lived in Abuja for over 28 years, Mathias Akosu, told NewsQuest that driving around the city metropolis at night was the delight of motorists back in 1997 and up to the end of the tenure of the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.
“These are the days when the street lighting system in the city was very functional. You could hardly differentiate between night and day in Abuja because the city was well-illuminated,” he noted.
Despite the level of darkness witnessed in the city, previous FCT administrations had committed billions of naira in budgetary allocation for this same purpose without visible results.
Only recently, the Coordinator of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), Felix Obuah raised an alarm on the non-functionality of street lights in the city, blaming maintenance contractors for contributing to the pervading darkness as a result of incompetence.
Of note to also worry about is that, several power infrastructures in Abuja are often vandalized leaving the street lights in comatose.
Before the appointment of Nyesom Wike by President Tinubu last year, as Minister of the FCT, noticeable areas in the city where installed street lights hardly worked included the Herbert Macaulay Way, Muhammadu Buhari Way, Jabi, the Aminu Kano Crescent, Gwarinpa road, the Ahmadu Bello Way, the Area 1 route expanding from the Dantata to Apo bridge, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport road axis as well as the Asokoro-Nyanya road. The story is fast changing.
According to the AMMC chief executive, it is however the responsibility of contractors as spelled out in their terms of engagement to secure these electricity facilities.
“I have personally moved around your areas of operation and I can say that the city is dark,” Obuah told a group of contractors recently in Abuja.
A sigh of relief however appears to be in near sight for Abuja residents with Minister Wike’s new commitment to light up the city. In January this year, the Minister directed security agencies to swiftly clamp down on all criminals vandalizing street light infrastructure in a move to fulfill one of his major promises of restoring the city’s street lighting system.
Already, the administration in May 2024 commenced the upgrade of the Airport road, Abuja lighting project with intelligent Smart Light Emitting Diode lights to complement the ongoing infrastructural development in the territory. The airport road axis has since become a delight. Interestingly, there are additional plans to migrate all major Abuja roads and street lights to the smart LED system considered more reliable.
While in Beijing, Wike who was on President Tinubu’s delegation to the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in early September, signed a deal with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and China Geo-Engineering Corporation Overseas Construction (CGCOC) to improve electricity and water supply in Abuja.
This move is seen as a further milestone step by the FCT administration in decades, hoping to make a significant change.
“We want Abuja to be like other cities, like what we see in Beijing. We have gone round, and we have seen light everywhere. That is how we want Abuja to be,” Wike said.
Under the Beijing MoU, the entire areas of Maitama, Asokoro, Wuse, Central Business District (CBD), the Airport road, down to Bill Clinton Drive will be handled by CCECC, while the CGCOC Group is expected to handle the districts of Mabushi, Katampe and Garki.
Besides enhancing the aesthetics of the capital city, lighting up Abuja will foster an improved night economy in the territory thereby, creating more jobs for the youths.
Many residents hope that as the former Rivers State governor delivers on the street lighting system, it will come along with effective traffic light controls. This is another component of the Abuja transportation system that must be given serious attention.
Available reports indicate that nonfunctional traffic lights at major junctions in Abuja have been responsible for most of the accidents witnessed in the territory aside from the traffic gridlock it causes on most days.
Since the broader strategy of the light-up Abuja project by the Minister is to improve the living conditions of residents, addressing the horrific traffic situation often witnessed by motorists is also essential. What is worth doing, is worth doing well.
