Kemi Badenoch says stupid public policy is why Nigeria has no light

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservative Party, has said what many of us have been thinking but are afraid to say out loud. In a recent interview with The Spectator, she stated clearly that Nigeria is an oil-producing country that has never had electricity, and she attributed this directly to stupid public policy. She said, and I quote, 'It is very easy to have resources under the ground, but stupid public policy means that you can't use them.'

Now, I know some people will immediately dismiss her because she is not Nigerian in the way we understand it, or because she is a British politician. But let us be honest with ourselves. Is she wrong? We have been producing oil since the 1950s. We have one of the largest gas reserves in the world. Yet our national grid collapses like a house of cards every other week. Generation has been stuck between 3,500 and 5,000 megawatts for a population of over 250 million people. That is not a resource problem. That is a policy failure, pure and simple.

President Tinubu said in his Democracy Day speech that he will address the power sector challenges. I want to believe him. But talk is cheap when we have seen decades of promises and no real change. The question we must ask ourselves is this: are we ready to admit that our own leaders have failed us through deliberate policy choices, or will we keep blaming colonialism and oil companies? Be honest with yourself when you answer.