In the next one year, the federal government intends to electrify Nigeria’s 104 Unity Schools and over 200 healthcentres in the country. In this report, Emmanuel Addeh undertakes a preview of the scheme
Whichever way one looks at it, ensuring universal access to energy services in Nigerian schools and health facilities remain an essential requirement for improving the overall well-being of learners in the country as well as patients who go for treatment in health centres all over the nation.
But over the years, despite the obvious link between the provision of electricity and patients’ hospital experience and well as students’ educational achievement, access to sustainable sources of energy has been mostly far-fetched.
Since reliable electricity has become essential to enhancing the general standard of living, it makes sense therefore to assert that the lack of it is also capable of creating considerable impediments towards escaping poverty and is a major contributor to a lower standard of living, which education seeks to eradicate. According to the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), roughly four out of every five primary and secondary schools in African countries lack access to electricity.
In the same vein, quite a number of primary health facilities in the country, especially in rural communities have limited access to energy and still rely heavily on traditional and outdated energy sources.
In areas where they exist, power supply is usually erratic, which adversely impacts the provision of healthcare services and has over the years frustrated medical professionals out of the country.
Indeed, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) estimates that out of the 75,000 doctors registered in the country, about 40,000 practice outside Nigeria, emigrating to countries like the UK where it is projected that 12 doctors from Nigeria are registered every week, owing to issues as basic as power supply.
Without doubt, lack of access to modern forms of energy or what is now commonly referred to as energy poverty, has both direct and indirect harmful effects on health and medical care facilities in Nigeria and by extension in sub-Saharan Africa.
The impact of lack of electricity supply to hospitals, especially primary healthcare centres can be quite devastating as doctors and other medical staff struggle to provide services, especially at night. Depending on paraffin lamps, candles or torches that provide low quality light, give off harmful fumes and, in some cases, present a fire hazard, ultimately, these present more expensive and costlier options in the long run because of their negative effect on livelihoods.
While life-saving treatments cannot be performed without good lighting, conducting medical examinations, invasive surgeries or childbirth, with poor lighting unsurprisingly pose additional risk to the patient.
Even before the added impact of Covid-19, vaccines, medications were expected to be stored in proper conditions, especially vaccines which protect against preventable diseases and can lose their effectiveness when not refrigerated properly.
In remote villages, even small health facilities will need to communicate with specialists, which will be almost impossible without energy to power basic gadgets like communication devices which are necessary to ensure that there is sufficient support during emergencies and enable better treatment decisions by connecting to specialists from referral hospitals.
The most routine procedures, even in cases of childbirth require medical tools that are impossible to use without a reliable power source, as access to power supply can increase child survival rates.
Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see health centres deploying generating sets, with its attendant emission of greenhouse gases which are harmful to already sick patients and exposes them to carbon monoxide poisoning.
In the education sector, the challenges are not less prominent. In 2017, The United Nations Resident Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr. Edward Kallon revealed that about 65 per cent of the 74,280 public primary and junior secondary schools in Nigeria lacked electricity, and as a result cannot guarantee technology-based education.
Speaking on the topic: “Light up, Light in: Interrogating the Nexus between Electricity and Basic Education in Nigeria,” Kallon said that of the billions of people who lack access to electricity globally, a huge number is resident in Africa.
“But the facts have shown that students who have access to electricity have been confirmed to perform better because they have access to modern facilities,” he stated.
Although in the past, there have been various efforts at minimising the impact of these shortcomings, but the recent initiative by the ministry of power to ensure the electrification of unity schools in the country and primary health centres in the next one year, appears to be one of the programmes with most impactful potential.
The federal government noted that through the programme, its is implementing an off-grid electrification for the deployment of solar electrification projects in the hospitals, schools and households in vulnerable off-grid communities across the country.
Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, said the federal government will set up solar mini-grids in all the 104 unity schools across the country, stressing that the renewable energy project is expected to improve security in the schools.
Aside enhancing students’ learning experience, bandits have in the last few months ramped up attacks on public schools across the country in the cover of darkness, one of the challenges the government is hoping to halt.
Mamman added that mini-grids will also be provided in 200 primary health centres (PHCs) across the country to improve healthcare services.
He said: “The federal ministry of power, under my watch, is embarking on a programme to electrify 200 primary health centres and all the 104 unity schools in the country.
“The mini-grid is also designed to provide solar powered street lights to the immediate communities of the PHCs and within the environment of the Unity Schools.
“We took this extraordinary step, to revolutionise and ease the learning process in our schools, as well as to facilitate uninterrupted healthcare services to our rural communities. The lighting programme is also expected to enhance the security arrangements around the schools.”
The minister added that the programme is being handled by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), and will create jobs and provide energy access to the unserved or underserved communities across all the geo-political zones under the federal government’s plan to achieve 30 per cent renewable energy sources by 2030.
Recall that the REA is currently implementing the Rural Electrification Fund (REF), Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), Energising Education Programme (EEP), Grid Extension (Capital projects), Energising Economies Initiative (EEI) and Solar Power Naija Programme.
The agency is responsible for creating an enabling environment for private sector-led projects which include conducting pre-feasibility assessments, energy audits, enumeration, data analysis, identification of qualified private sector developers, and project stakeholder engagements.
Mamman reiterated that the scheme will involve the deployment of mini-grids in 200 PHCs and provision of solar street lights to adjoining communities, distribution of Solar Home Systems (SHS) to 104 unity schools and provision of solar street lights within the campuses.
“In addition, the processes are in advanced stages for World Bank financing under the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) to further close the energy gap in the health sector through the deployment of solar-hybrid captive power solutions to 100 secondary and tertiary health facilities which have also served as isolation and treatment centres across the country.
“Through these programmes, health centres, unity schools and communities will be strengthened with reliable power to deal with health cases, provide a conducive environment for quality education delivery and an improved standard of living.
“In line with global best practice, all components and interventions being driven under the ESP of the federal government of Nigeria have been deliberately designed to optimise the best in renewable energy technologies, mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while closing the energy gap across the nation,” the government added.
On his part, the Minister of State, Power, Goddy Jedy-Agba, who directly supervises the REA, said that the project will cut across the six geo-political zones under the Economic Sustainability Programme (ESP).
According to him, the presidential initiative, which is expected to be completed in 12 months, tagged, “Energy for All- Mass Rural Electrification”, is geared towards supporting the country’s economic recovery and growth plan to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 in the economy of the nation.
Jedy-Agba enthused that the mass solar electrification projects will create jobs and facilitate energy access to unserved and undeserved areas in line with federal government’s plan to have 30 per cent of its total electricity supply from renewable sources, especially solar power by 2030.
The minister emphasised that the federal government initiative is to strengthen and close the energy gap in the health sector through the deployment of solar-hybrid captive power solutions to secondary and tertiary health facilities which have also served as isolation and treatment centres across the country in the Covid-19 scourge.
He stated that the mass solar electrification initiative will strengthen the functionality of health centres, unity schools and communities that were in the past faced with the absence of electricity.
He admitted that primary health centres and secondary schools in the country have gone through difficulties in providing electricity to strengthen their capacities, but said the intervention strategy of the present administration has changed the narrative of lack of access to electricity.
The minister noted that before now, the Buhari administration had formulated relevant policies to extend the minimum use of electricity in secondary schools and primary health institutions in the country.
However, the power sector reforms, he maintained, became a reality when government opted to provide clean and renewable energy first in selected federal universities and is now being extended to secondary schools and primary health centres across the nation.
The primary health and secondary schools electrification project, he stated, is carefully designed by government to empower communities and drive the process of development in the two major sectors of national life.
Through these projects, the federal government stated that artisans, skilled and unskilled workers would be engaged, creating more jobs for the youths.
“Government policy thrust is to reduce deaths and worsening conditions of the health of our people as mostly seen where primary health centres cannot make use of small and medium scale equipment because of the absence of electricity, incessant shortages of water supply and other factors that require power to function effectively.
“Secondary school students are faced with the high spate of kidnap, yet only few schools have capacity to provide electricity through generating plants in their local institutions.
“With the advent of this programme, adequate security in secondary schools can be assured as movement of people can be monitored at night. Besides, students will have long hours to study,” the ministry noted.
