Eko Encounters: Driving Tips for Eko

I have now been in Eko for more than four months and been driving for about three months. As blogged earlier, Mrs B won her bet, in that it took me less than my projected one year to drive in Eko.

I am still getting used to it. I have now done the entire circuit: morning rush hour (when Nasiru was ill, was driving and stopped in the middle of the road to throw up, I jipust had to take over the wheel. Talk of being push into the deep end of the pool!), weekdays after work, weekends, holidays.

I have formulated my own survival rules and observations for Ekotic driving, as follows:

1. In Eko, there is nothing like right of way. Whoever gets to the point first has right of way. Respect that and stay out of a clash.

2. If you want to change lanes, don’t indicate with your trafficator. Doing that tells the car in that lane, way behind you, to speed and fill the empty space! (That is difficult for me to follow, though, so I continue to suffer.)

3. The car watches for the okada and not the other way round. Make way for the okada at all costs.

4. Fear LASMA more than the police.

5. Before stopping at the yellow sign at the traffic light, watch your rear mirror for the on-coming vehicle or okada and decide.

6. The rods the police and other traffic officers hold when managing traffic is not for support in standing; it is for cracking rear windscreens. Beware.

7. In Eko, you don’t need space on the left or right of the car ahead of you in order to overtake. Just drive on and ‘push’ it out of your way. The driver ahead of you would either make way or get a fresh scratch of his/her car – scratches are normal.

8. Talking of scratches, an un-scratched car in Eko is as rare as the urine of a hen.

Still learning…

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Eko Encounters: Tokumbo Limo

11 July, 2012

Circa 6.40pm, Lagos. In heavy traffic, towardsVictoria Island. There is a lot of traffic in Lagos due to the closure of 3rd Mainland Bridge for repairs.

We hear sirens, and I asked Nasiru, my driver, if the convoy is approaching from behind us. I asked him to make way for them, when he answered in the affirmative. A pickup with armed police pass us, followed by a black unregistered Range Rover limousine.

“Na tokumbo,” says Nasiru.

Tokumbo means used or second hand car. I asked him why he says that and he points out that it is because it has no license plate. I argue that I have seen some new cars with no license plates being escorted. He shrugged, clearly not convinced that the limo is not tokumbo.

He got his vindication – a few seconds later, the limo has stopped in the middle of the road, in traffic. A fault.

“Na tokumbo,” Nasiru repeats, smiling in a satisfied way.

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Eko Encounters: Why Sweat Elsewhere?

27 June 2012

Pro Patria!

As I made my way to work this morning, my thoughts turned, as usual for this week in particular, toAfrica. I have been musing this week aboutGhanaand today I added the country I consider my second home –Nigeria.

I have been working here in Eko permanently for almost three months now. I am not new to Amalaman. Since I started working with Unilever after school in 2000, I have been visiting here for about fourteen times before moving here permanently. My first visit to Amalaman was in January 2001, and it was for a conference in Ogere. Interestingly, my first trip out ofLagosin April this year was toIbadanand we went by Ogere and right by the conference centre – nostalgic. In 2009, I stayed here for a full month.

I have been telling my colleagues at work, Mr O and Mrs B especially that when I read the papers, especially The Punch which is what I subscribe to at work, I find too many negative words being used, to much pessimism.

Just as an example, I have now picked, randomly, the Thursday June 14 2012 edition of The Punch. The words and phrases that jump at me: scandals, bribe, suspicion, rot, stinks, emergency, warns, recession. This is just the front page, I have not opened it yet. There is, however, one positive story – Man, 80, bags B.Sc in Sociology (that was so inspiring).

I ask my colleagues why.

When I come to work during the week and also move about during the weekend, I never regret being inNigeriaor working here. I love it. Challenges nevertheless.

Another argument I always have with my Nigerian friends – I tell them they have a romantic view ofGhana. Usually when I hear such statements as ‘Oh, it is not like this or that inGhana’, I challenge the speaker and ask ‘Have you ever been toGhana?’ Three times out of four, the person hasn’t been. It is not all that rosy in my homeland, we are all on this road to development, and have our challenges.

After my first degree and my statutory (second) National Service, I worked for five years in Ghanabefore going to the UKfor a year’s masters program. This was between September 2005 and September 2006. I submitted my dissertation on the 15 September, stayed for two weeks to help with the Welcome program for International Students and to tidy up a few issues and I was back in Ghana on the 2^nd October 2006. I had resigned from Unilever before going for my studies and as at the time I returned, there was no firm offer from Unilever to take me back. A Ghanaian friend based in theUK asked me why I was returning toGhana, and why I didn’t like it in theUK. As a typical Ghanaian, I answered him with a question, querying him in return why he was in theUK and why he didn’t like it inGhana. I will state my reasons for returning home so soon, later in this piece but before that, allow me to share a statement a senior colleague made to me.

I had got a Chevening scholarship to study atNottinghamUniversity. As I considered my options, I went to consult with Adlai Opoku-Boamah, a senior manager at Unilever who had just recently returned from theUKon a similar scholarship. His advice was simple: “Nana, if you want to be a big man, come back home.”

I saw the development in theUK, I have seen the development inSouth Africaand since returning from my studies, I have been to other countries where the level of advancement is far above what transpires inGhanaand other African countries. I saw how hard people, including many Africans, are working in theUKto make that country prosper and become what it is. And I asked myself, Why sweat somewhere else?

Why sweat my youthful years away building someone’s village and not mine? Why put my shoulders to a wheel that turns another economy whilst the one that has my umbilical cord tied to it travels south? And in returning toGhana, I was returning toAfrica, to the continent that needs the resources to grow.

We berate the whites for slavery and argue that the slave trade took away all our energetic and productive young men and women. Are we not practising a voluntary trade today?

One of the issues that tickle in the wrong places is when my brothers and sisters living abroad visit home for a week and lament about everything and see nothing worthwhile to commend. Who should stay behind and build?

I was in school with a number of Nigerians, who stayed back. Try telling them to come back home to help, and it will be like selling amala to a Chinese man. How else canNigeriagrow if all the top brains are going out for studies and not returning? How canAfricaimprove if we don’t want to stay, sweat and swim against the tide of under-development and turn our economies around?

 

Who is to give the hope back? Who is to change the language we use? Who is to enervate us, inspire us, bring us the va-va-voom? It will not be the politicians, I can guarantee you. It will be us, the ordinary citizens.

Why sweat elsewhere when I can sweat on the continent, and stay in a betterGhana, a betterNigeria, a betterAfrica?

Why sweat elsewhere?

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Eko Encounters: The Gospel According to St Farouk

My colleague Ronke Alabi shared this with me at close of day today, and I couldn’t keep it to myself. Enjoy!

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1)  And it came to pass after these things, on the first day of the first month of the twelfth year after the second millennium, that king Jona son of Bele announced to the people saying; there is no money left in the royal treasury, and the future of the kingdom is in great danger.

2) Therefore, a measure of oil shall no longer sell for three scores of silver and seven, but shall now be seven scores of silver and one. But the people grumbled aloud, and said unto another, what shall it profit our king to gain all these oil money and lose his throne?

3) For it is appointed unto him to reign but once, and after this prison, for many are the atrocities which he has committed.

4)  So they said unto the king, eat thou thy food in peace in the palace, and surround thou thyself with thine women, only touch not our oil price and do thy people no harm.

5) But the king would not listen, and said unto himself, I know my people, they shall only grumble for a while and soon they shall forget.

6) But the people would not forget, for the burden was too much for them to bear, and they said; now unto him that is able to increase the price of oil exceeding abundantly above all that his people can bear or think, according to the greed which worketh in him;

7) Unto him be curses in the streets by the masses throughout all ages, protests without end.

So they took to the streets and gave the land no peace, and there was no going out or coming in throughout the kingdom for two weeks, and the king feared greatly and said to himself, surely these people shall overturn me if I answer them not.

9) So he called the head of the labourers unto the palace, and gave him bags of gold, that he mayest turn off the wrath of the people against the king.

10) So the king assembled the people and said unto them; a measure of oil shall no longer be seven scores of silver and one, but shall now be four scores of silver, one dozen and five, to this your leaders have agreed. Praise me now therefore for I am a benevolent king.

11) And after all these, the Loudspeaker of the House of People said, let us inquire into the king’s claim that there be no money in the royal treasury. So they appointed Farcrook, son of Lawal.

12) And said unto him, gather ye now all the oil sellers, that we may know who stole from the kingdom. This did him with diligence, and came back with his report saying

13) Thieves abound in the land, and so have the oil sellers stole from the people, and gave them not oil, this they did with the help of Aliyaro the king’s mistress; and the amount he mentioned was unheard of in the land.

14) When the people heard this, they were dismayed, and sorrow gripped their hearts.

15) But the oil sellers went in unto the king in his chamber, and said; rememberest thou O king that the what we stole did we make available to thy campaign, and by thus did we make you king.

16) If thou deliver us unto the people that they may punish us, we will hold not our tongue to tell the people that thou art one of us.

17) And they said unto him, how else shall we destroy the message if not to destroy the messenger? Let us therefore implicate Farcrook the son of Lawal in this matter.

18) So they sent a certain rich man from the West by the name Otedollar, and he took Farcrook into his house and gave him some money, that he may alter the report which he had set before the people.

19) And it was that Otedollar went before an assembly of the people and said unto them, trust ye this man who said we stole from the treasury? Surely he is one of us, for he came unto me in the middle of the night, and he left with his pockets full of money.

20) And the people where amazed, and their hearts bled, for Farcrook was a man in whom they had put their trust.

21) So Farcrook arose, and said; Otedollar is my briber, I did not request. He maketh me to sit down in his Maitama house; he leadeth me beside the chilled champagne.

22) He exploited my greed; he leadeth me in the path of marked dollars for subsidy’s sake.

23) Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of EFCC, I will fear no arrest: for bribes are with me; my loots and my kickbacks they comfort me.

24) Thou preparest the dollars before me, in the presence of the SSS: thou anointest my mouth with wine; my pocket runneth over.

25) Surely the shame and reproach shall follow me all the days of my life, but I will dwell in the house of PDP forever and ever.

26) And the people wept, but there was no one to console them.

 Source: http://www.omojuwa.com/2012/the-gospel-according-to-saint-farouk

Ogunyemi Bukola

Follow @zebbook on twitter

 

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Eko Encounters: Mainland Maneuvers

29 May 2012

Today is Democracy Day in Amalaman and a holiday. Nasiru is off on holidays and Sundays and yet I needed to go to work. My driving on Sunday 27 May, though just 3 km radius within Ikoyi, had given me some confidence. Our elders advise that if a man who has chewed the gong gong threatens to do same justice to the accompanying stick, you better get him a calabash of water or better still palm wine to wash it down. Doubt not such a man. Or woman. However, the one who starts cracking the shell of a snails has the potential to graduated into splitting that of a tortoise.

The previous day as we returned home from Ilupeju, I took notes of the main landmarks on the route. A signpost here saying straight to Saki, pass under an Etisalat billboard, exit right where it says ‘To Lagos’, drive under a footbridge, keep to the middle lane, etc. Rough notes.

My intention was to set off early, again using the Aferba Principle as described in the post of 27 May. The rains muddied that plan. I had realised that when it poured in Eko, the normal deviates a bit from the datum. So I tarried.

My control tower gave the all clear around 9.30 am. I set off from home, and made a stopover at a hotel close by to see my pal Ngoni. I was quite familiar with the route to Ilupeju after the tale of one wrong turn. Within 20 minutes I was in the office.

It felt good! Of course being a holiday, traffic was light but it was now the mainland I had driven to! The drive on the 3rd Mainland bridge was particularly enthralling.

My return trip was done around 3.30 pm. I studied my notes on the route again. This was the first time I was doing it all on my own, after taking particular attention. As I drove home, recollecting the landmarks and turns, I realised for the first time how well the directional signage on the highways were helpful, and that I could depend on them totally. Signage that showed with lanes to keep in, where the exits were, and to where. Impressed I was. Can someone inform the Bearded Slanger in Kenkeyman to come and learn sometime to implement for once?

Not bad for the attempt on Mainland driving, even if I say so. After all, the agama lizard says if no one will praise him after landing from a fall from the tree, he will praise himself. Small small, the old lady will carry water up the hill, as my friend Nana Asaase the linguistic poet would say. In any case, even the ant reaches its destination.

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Eko Encounters: And He Drove…Me!

27 May 2012

I have already written about my vow never to drive in Eko. That intention actually goes against one of my cardinal principles: never to say never. My colleague Mrs B had already told me I would be driving in Eko before the year is out, to which I giggled. No way, I told her.

The Akans say that when it gets to the crunch, the white man, the Obroni, speaks Twi. My former Unilever colleague Emmanuel had invited me to a lunch in his house with our former boss and other colleagues, and his house is at Ikoyi. Well, not too far from where I am living presently. Nasiru doesn’t work on Sundays. So my options are actually two: to drive myself or to go in a cab. Forget an okada!

When we got married in June 2002, I had an Opel Vectra, my first car. I loved that car; I felt it was a Mercedes. I remember sending a mail to my classmates from Tech via our class mailing list to inform them about the car. From memory I recollect that I thought the steering was power-steering. By the blessedness of technology and my archives, I have been able to retrieve that mail:

From: Nana Damoah

Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 7:54 AM

To: Classmates

Subject: Declaration

Anuanom,

God has been good to me for all these years. This year has begun on a good note for me. By His grace, I now drive a 1992 Opel Vectra 1600cc engine. I am still getting used to it, and enjoying it with my wife-to-be. Features include 15″ alloy wheels, Power front windows, Power mirrors, Central locking, and nice steering (almost power, though I am not certain yet).

So, praise God with me.

Another information which is already in the public domain is that I am planning to marry on 15th June this year. I am giving you all very very advance notice, because you are special.

God bless, and keep the Spirit. More blessings are on the way for all of us.

HETCB

 I am laughing so hard at the mail, 10 years down the line. My signature then was a fleeting nickname my classmates had given me: His Excellency The Chilling Brother.

Vivian had learnt how to drive but wasn’t really practising. I was in the Quality Assurance Department of Unilever then and use to travel on trade visits every quarter, going away for a week at a time, covering the entire nation each year, visiting the key distributors and the markets to assess quality in the trade. When I left, the car was packed in the garage and Vivian who was then working in Accra (we lived at Lashibi) walked from our home in Community 18 to the junction, and had to pick series of public transport (taxi and trotro) to get to work. The first day of that week, she really had it in traffic and got home late. On her way home, she decided that it made no sense to have a car at home and be struggling to get a car to and from work! That evening, she cleaned the car and the early on Tuesday, she set off to work, very early so she wouldn’t encounter much traffic. By the Friday when I returned from my trek, my wife had become an expert driver.

This morning, I decided to use the same approach. Sunday is not noted for heavy traffic. So though the lunch invitation is for around 1pm, I drove out to find the location, and realised how much I miss driving!

Tentative first attempt. I will drive to and from Emmanuel’s house again this afternoon. Let’s see how quickly Mrs B’s prediction comes to pass.

Eish, Eko o ni ba je!  

Ah, o baje ti!

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Eko Encounters: Nasiru’s Breakfast

26 May 2012

I had a dinner with my former boss yesterday, and we really had a good time, chatting from about 6.45pm till late, about 11.30pm. My driver lives about an hour away, if there is minimal traffic but could sometimes take him 2-3 hours, and it was also too late to let him go home. So I asked him to spend the night in my sitting room. This morning, I asked him if he wanted to go home and come back, since I wanted us to go out toVictoria Island for some shopping today and perhaps pass through the office. He reminded me that today is Sanitation Saturday and therefore cannot move between 7 and 10am. I, therefore, needed to get him some food, breakfast.

‘Do you know how to cook?’ I asked him.

‘No,’ he responded.

His wife cooks for him, he explained.

At work a couple of weeks ago, we got into a discussion after one of the cleaners in the office admitted that he didn’t know how to iron! Ah, I explained to my colleagues, in Ghana, ironing is one of the key jobs of a young man when growing up. For me, I learnt how to iron even the intricate kabas of my mum and sisters.

As for cooking, even though I grew up with four sisters and older brothers and didn’t have the responsibility to cook for the family, I was responsible for fanning the coalpot, picking up saucepans and also washing the dishes etc as mum cooked. I also had to use the tapoli to grind the tomatoes and pepper in the apotoyiwa or asanka. By so doing, I learnt by observation. From time to time, mum would ask me to stir the stew and taste for salt level, and so on. In the University, I cooked for myself as I didn’t have enough funds to be eating outside all the time. I went to the market at Asafo to shop, my parents sent me foodstuff from Wasa Akropong – yams, plantain, kontomire, fish, bushmeat. It was cheaper this way to fend for myself.

Many of my mates in Tech cooked as well, though some were lousy. I remember a colleague who wanted to cook jollof rice. Paddyman started with water, then added Frytol to the boiling water, next to join this emulsion was the tomato paste and then the pepper, with generous helpings of Royco cubes. The rice got it along the way. Suffice it to say that he ended up with a suspension of rice in oily water!

Nasiru got me thinking again this morning. Is it that the average male Amalamanian is brought up not helping with any house chores at all, across the various classes? This is worth an investigation.

I just finished preparing some breakfast for him to eat. Bon appetite, Nasiru.

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Eko Encounters: A Tale of One Wrong Turn

16 May 2012

I got my official car a couple of weeks ago but only started using it yesterday 15 May. The reason was simple. And no, it is not because I can’t drive or I prefer okada. I had promised myself that there was no way I was going to drive inLagos. Not for all the amala and ewedu soup inIbadan.

Eish, the trotro drivers we curse inAccra, who think they are the terrorists onAccraroads will wet their pants here on Eko roads. The driving is not bumper to bumper; it is side door to side door. Who asks about following distance here? A friend told me that in Eko, whoever gets to a point first has right of way! Don’t bring your rule book here saying that the person in the inside of a roundabout has right of way. What way? I feel that passengers in adjacent cars could even reach out and shake hands in traffic! They drive that close. My colleague Mr T told me that if you are in traffic and you want to change lanes, the worst way to do it is to indicate with your trafficators. That is the sure way to get the car behind you to honk incessantly and fill the space on your right or left. And when the car behind you wants to get in front, he sort of pushes you out of your position literally from behind, instead of driving to your right or left first and getting ahead of you. Eko driving, na wao!

So I was waiting to get a driver. The transport office facilitated it. He came around on Monday 14 May and we agreed terms. Nasiru started working for me on 15 May and our first day was spent driving to Ikorodu for a meeting. We returned to the head office at Ilupeju in the afternoon. My usual closing time is around 6.30pm, but can sometimes stay beyond 7pm. On Nasiru’s first day at work, I decided to ease him into the job and ramp up eventually. As he lived at Ikorodu and wasn’t too familiar with my area, I wanted him to close early so he finds his way home whilst it was still not dark.

He drove well on his first day. He was cautiously confident behind the wheel, and didn’t indulge in any expression of road rage. The previous week, the pool driver taking me home engaged in a Tom and Jerry race and naming calling, and, yes, insults with a damfo driver. I had to reprimand him, explaining that his conduct showed disrespect to his passenger and to the company, whose logo he had embossed on the breast pocket of his shirt. Nasiru was markedly different. More like a gentleAccratrotro driver.

Today, Nasiru reported around 6am, we ate breakfast and by 7am as usual, we were on our way. The journey to the office usually took 25 minutes max.

Even though I had been driven on this route since 2 April, I hadn’t particularly studied all the turns. However, on Nasiru’s first day, as we set off, when I asked him whether he knew how to get us to Ilupeju, he replied in the negative. Eish!

‘Well, let’s go. We will see how we do it together.’

I respected the power of the brain, in storing information, even unconsciously. I was able to direct him to the office.

So on the second day, I didn’t pay attention, assuming that he would remember the route from the previous day. I spent the time reading. Just after 7.15 am, Nasiru said ‘Oga, I missed the turn.’

We had failed to spot the right turn we should have made at Oworonshoki to get onto the 3rd mainland bridge. Measuring about 11.8 km, built by the firm Julius Berger and commissioned in 1990 by Ibrahim Babandiga (on his birthday), the Third Mainland Bridge is the longest of three bridges connecting Lagos Island to the mainland, the other two being the Eko and Carter bridges. It is the longest bridge inAfrica. The bridge starts from Oworonshoki which is linked to the Apapa-Oshodi express way and Lagos-Ibadan express way, and ends at the Adeniji Adele Interchange onLagosIsland. There is also a link midway through the bridge that leads to theHerbert Macaulay Way, Yaba.

I told him not to worry and to find a way to turn around. On our way back to join the mainland bridge, Nasiru stopped by the highway and looked in the inside mirror.

‘What is the matter?’ I asked him.

‘Oga, I missed the turn to join again.’

It was about 7.45 am, and we were again at Oworonshoki.

‘What do you want to do?’ I asked, in slight alarm, as I sensed what he wanted to do. Nasiru wanted to reverse.

To reverse?! He nodded yes. No way!

I have seen a couple of people do that on the motorway betweenAccraand Tema and thought they were mad. I wasn’t about to classify myself in the same category, and definitely not going to do such an unsafe act. I am sure it would be against the law too, for sure.

Again, I told him not to worry. ‘When you miss a turn once and you rectify your mistake, you won’t repeat it,’ I encouraged it. ‘It is better to arrive alive and late than early but in heaven,’ I added. Or hell, I should have added, depending on your reservation.

We took a drive through a route unknown to me, and made a turn at a point where there was a traffic warden allowing U-turns besides a No-U turn signage. I trusted that, as happens inGhana, the traffic wardens could override the traffic lights, but well, I wasn’t complaining.

We made it to the Oworonshoki turn at 7.58 am.

One wrong turn had led to another and we had spent about forty minutes finding our way back to our starting point. That is the sense of wahala in navigating through the labyrinth of Eko roads. My boss told me one of the reasons why a driver was advisable is that I would be frustrated with the routes to use, especially if there was hold up, defined by my humble self as gargantuan traffic, and there is the need to explore alternative paths.

I am always impressed with the road network in Eko. The plethora of flyovers that link with each other like taalia on my favorite waakye. And I am amused then when I think of the euphoria and political counterclaims and ramble rousing that greeted the commissioning of the N1 highway in Accra. Only one more to add up to Tetteh Quarshie and the smaller Ako Adjei (here I smile when I recall that Sheiks I C Quaye was rumored to have said that Ako Adjei was named after the interchange!), Tema/Ashaiman, and Nima/Kanda interchanges. Our leaders should do more! Roundabouts are so 19^th century now. We need interchanges and flyovers at the Tema motorway roundabout, for instance. That is long overdue. Our cousins in Eko and beyond certainly beat us in this regard. And, oh ok, in this,Nairobi lags behind paa.

We eventually got to work at 8.08am. An hour after setting off for my 20 minute drive to work.

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Eko Encounters: A Wasa Man in Amalaman – Never Expect Power Always

As someone who considersNigeriamy second home, I shared the frustration of many Nigerians about the power situation in Amalaman. I have been having the same discussions with colleagues at work and we spent the entire lunch time on it yesterday. I just don’t understand it why a country likeNigeriacannot have steady power. And even when the NEPA power is on, the bulb flicker like candle light (a term I learnt when I spent a night in my friend Kola’s house and he asked me to take note of it).

I remember the words of a former CEO of MTN Nigeria who (reportedly) said that when he arrived freshly inNigeria, he saw a lot of chaos. But on further and careful observation, he realised that just under the top layer of chaos is a system/layer of organisation. The iceberg phenomenon – the top ice is managed by the unseen big ice below the surface. He concluded that the chaos inNigeriais organised chaos, carefully engineered by people for their personal enrichment.

I should find the post I made when I spent a month here in 2009, when I finally understood the reason why the power problem may take longer to solve unless there is a leader who cares not about what his cronies think or a second term – and goes all out to change things inNigeria. I put it this way: The strength of personal greed overpowering the corporate good.

I worked for a company called Nosak between 2009 and 2010, a Nigerian company. One of their major subsidiaries is an oil marketing arm. They supply the diesel requirements of companies to run their gensets. There are many such companies like that, who have made millionnaires here. You think all these guys will sit akimbo for all that demand to go only to NEPA for them to be the one point source of power generation? What of all the companies that are making millions from selling monster generators?

A colleague at work gave a likely solution: all these guys bringing in generators, give them licenses to be power providers. It is not rocket science. WhenGhanaexperienced power issues in the mid-2000s, we augmented the power generation from Akosombo dam, hydro-, with thermal plants. Why can’tNigeriado the same? Recently,Ghanaexperienced power rationing because the power demand outstripped the supply. Reason? Insufficient gas supply fromNigeriato run the thermal plants. So why can’t the supplier of this gas install thermal plants to supply power in their own country? Beats me. I thought President Obasanjo brought in a number of generating units – what happened to them?

Again inGhana, we are having private power providers joining the supply chain like Asogli Power Plant and Tema Osonor Plant Limited. Asogli s generating 200 MW from Combustion Engine Power Plant. Tema Osonor Plant is expected to add 126MW of power to the national grid. Asogli company is an enterprise jointly established by the Shenzhan Energy Group Limited and the China Africa Development Fund, the former having 60 per cent shares and the latter 40 per cent and it has an installed capacity of 560 megawatts.

In a Ghana New Agency (GNA) report posted on Ghanaweb on 13 January, 2012, Mr Haicheng Zhang, Managing Director of the Sunon Asogli Power Plant, stated that the plant alone produced fifteen per cent of the total electricity generated in Ghanain 2011. According to the Ghana Government website (www.ghana.gov.gh), the second phase of the Sunon Asogli Plant Project should be up by end 2012, costing $360million and expected to add 360MW more to the national power generation capacity.

So why can’tNigeriado the same? I made a point yesterday to my colleagues that manufacturing companies inNigerialike PZ, Unilever, the pharmaceutical companies are all running their own gensets and providing power to meet their huge requirements. Some of these sets can supply power to entire suburbs. This is happening right inNigeria, equipment run and services and managed by Nigerians. If the private companies can do it, why can’t the state and federal governments? My take out is that it doesn’t boil down to know-how. It comes down to the will.

The will to want to sort it out. The will to wipe away what I call a national irritation. You realise that I am careful not to call it a national shame, as I am trying to follow the Survival Guide given to me by my friend Bisi not to criticize the land where my bread is now margarined.

If the power managing the top layer will reset its priorities, the power problem in Eko and beyond can be solved, in a few years.

References:

http://www.icafrica.org/fileadmin/documents/ICA_meeting/2009_meetings/US_Treasury_ICA_Dakar_May_2009/5-Presentation%20to%20AfDB_APPIWG_TOPP_2.pdf

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=227604&comment=0#com

http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/news/regional-news/greater-accra/10090-work-to-commence-on-360-million-dollar-sunon-asogli-plant-

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Eko Encounters: Dealing with small flies

I learnt a long time ago in my career that you should not waste your time arguing with those who don’t matter in any matter at hand and deal with the decision maker. It has helped me to keep my composure when people try to irritate you, hehe. I got another opportunity to reinforce this truism. On Friday morning, my colleague Toyin told me we were supposed to change our ID card holders for new ones. She directed me to an office at the main secuirty entrance. Around 9am, I went to the security house, and asked one of the contract security officers, a female, where I could get my ID card holder changed.

“Na this one you dey hold, e no good?” she asked me.

“Where is the office where I can change it?” I retorted, and turned to see a small office. She confirmed that indeed that was the office I was looking for.

I went in, and within minutes I was out of there, with the new holder, embossed with the PZ logo. It was a wholesale change.

Don’t argue with small flies.

In most instances in Ghana, we have small officers who would want to frustrate you to the elastic limits of your patience. I call those people “wannable big men and women in small offices”. Wanting to feel significant, they pump up their pompous selves with air. Learn to ignore their effusions and keep your calm – sometimes they actually matter not. Actually, most times.

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