With just two weeks left to go before the end of the year, it can be stated categorically that there is absolutely no chance that the government will meet its stated target of supplying 6,000 MW of electricity. Everybody in PHCN knows it. The Minister of Power knows it. Even
uninitiated folk in the streets know it. And yet, the government and its friends in PDP continue to stake their reputations and credibility on this chimerical target, suggesting somehow that not only will this target be achieved, but that, once achieved, the problems in the power sector will miraculously be resolved. This is curious behaviour indeed.
In reality, come December 31st, we are likely to still be generating under 4,000 MW. The excuse for falling far short of the target will no doubt be that we were not able to source sufficient gas. Indeed, it would appear that the excuse of ‘lack of gas’ has taken the place of the ‘lack of rain’ excuse we used to hear from NEPA when the lights went out. However, the issue of insufficient gas supply was known about long before the Minister came up with the 6,000 MW target. It has little to do with Niger Delta militancy or the actual availability of gas, and more to do with the insane hallucination that potential gas providers can be begged or bullied into providing gas at a tenth of international gas prices. They never have and they never will. And no amount of delusional thinking is going to alter that basic economic reality. So, why then are we being kept in the dark? Why then, almost seven years since we celebrated Senator (now Governor) Liyel Imoke’s achievement of meeting the target of 4,000 MW are we still in the same position, after spending an additional N1trillion that cannot seem to be accounted for? When, in February 2008, President Yar’Adua said that “there is no better evidence of our narrow focus than our nation’s dismal power sector, even with our prodigious gas reserves," as he inaugurated the “Committee for the Accelerated Expansion of Nigeria’s Power Infrastructure," many thought he was being serious.
uninitiated folk in the streets know it. And yet, the government and its friends in PDP continue to stake their reputations and credibility on this chimerical target, suggesting somehow that not only will this target be achieved, but that, once achieved, the problems in the power sector will miraculously be resolved. This is curious behaviour indeed. 
