EXPRESSO>>> By Steve Osuji
Never try to convince me that a dog is a monkey! This is a brutal Yoruba adage. The saying mocks someone who’s telling what is regarded as a ‘foolish lie’. Someone who tries to deceive and cheaply hoodwink another.
Maa pe aja l’obo funmi, the victim would retort, always angrily. It also means, “don’t take me for a fool; do you think I am stupid?”
This is the upthrust of Mr Dele Alake’s recent denial and fobbing over the famous campaign promise of President Bola Tinubu.
Recall that Tinubu is on record to have told Nigerians that he would solve the country’s electricity challenge in the first term of office or else, Nigerians should reject him should he ask for a re-election.
Here are President Tinubu’s exact words: “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you will have electricity and you will not have estimated bills anymore.
A promise made is a promise kept. If I don’t keep the promise and come for a second term, don’t vote for me, unless I give you adequate reasons why I couldn’t deliver.”
The vow is all over the internet. It was made in December, 2022 during the presidential campaign for Tinubu’s first term as he addressed the Organised Private Sector (OPS).
Three and a half years later, re-election campaign is raging right now and Tinubu’s spokespersons have been busy trying to twist the vow and to convince us that a dog is a monkey. Who is the monkey?
Last June, it was Bayo Onanuga, the chief spokesperson of President Tinubu who led the charge. He told the press that the President’s remark on the power sector has been misrepresented, insisting that Tinubu’s statement was conditional and not an outright pledge to forgo a second term.
Onanuga said:
“And if by any chance he has reasons not to give Nigerians adequate power, then they should understand the problem that he inherited.”
They are forever blaming others as if the purpose of government is not to solve problems, inherited or not!
Who’s the monkey?
But Mr Dele Alake, Minister of Mines and Solid Minerals, as well as the Spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council reinforced the lie at the kick off of the party’s campaign last week.
Troubled by a stubborn campaign pledge that keeps haunting the APC, Alake told Nigerians that what President Tinubu said was that he would either deliver adequate electricity and end estimated billings or provide adequate reasons if he fell short, before seeking re-election.
Wow! Which government provides adequate reasons why it can’t get anything done? Who’s the monkey here?
It is all so very shameful that President Tinubu has not only failed woefully in the power sector, he is an all round abysmal failure as a president.
In better ordered climes where the legislature is alive to its duties, the president would have been impeached a couple of years ago.
Moreover, the president did not only fail to deliver electricity to Nigerians, power supply became so bad that even the Aso Rock, abode of the president had to go off grid.
A total of N17 billion was spent across two budgets to solarised the Presidential Villa complex. The sum of N10 billion was spent in 2025 and another N7 billion projected in the current 2026 Appropriation Act. Meanwhile, the majority of Nigerians are left to scurry about in darkness like animals in the jungle.
In other words, President Tinubu messed up the power situation so much that he couldn’t endure the darkness any longer. A section of Aso Rock is said to now look like a sprawling garden of solar panels.
For days and even weeks, most parts of Nigeria are in darkness. Just like the president has done, most well to do Nigerians have switched to solar and all sorts of off-grid power systems.
In 2024, the power grid reportedly collapsed for an unprecedented 12 times. In 2025, it failed about four times and this year, the national grid has crashed three times and is still counting.
No new investments, no plans for the power sector.
In May 2023 when President Tinubu assumed office, power generation stood at about 5000 MW. Today, it is said to have crashed to about 2,898 MW, probably an all-time low. Notwithstanding that installed capacity stands at between 13,000 to 14,000 MW, the national grid has received little attention from this administration, so generated power cannot be discharged.
Apart from the Electricity Act of 2023, nothing concrete was done by the current administration in the power sector. It has always been the same old excuses and same silly stories about debt, tarrif, gas supply, on and on!
The first Minister of Power, (2023-2026), Adebayo Adelabu was too busy preparing to be governor of Oyo State. He neither had any initiative nor did he apply himself to the job. Many said he was busy raising his campaign war chest.
For three years, Adelabu only built a high stanchion of excuses.
The current Power Minister, Joseph Tegbe has proved to be even worse than the last. Looking provincial and out of sorts, he even made a silly joke in September about Nigerians begging him to stave off power supply as their freezers were getting “over-frozen,” or such baloney.
What a cruel joke for a country of over 240 million people living effectively with barely 3000MW. That’s bizarre. And for anyone to try to explain this situation away is acting the monkey.
It is on record that the last major work on national transmission facilities was during the Muhammadu Buhari’s era when power was under the charge of Babatunde Fashola as power minister. Since he left, not much has been accomplished in terms of grid infrastructure upgrades.
The Discos and Gencos have been pretty much left to their wiles with little oversight by the government. The Discos continue to relish in (over) estimated bills while reluctant to meter the consumers.
The corrupted power privatisation of 2001 has remained unreviewed and uncorrected causing the logjam in the system. The same politicians playing tricks with the populace own the rogue Discos. Who’s the monkey now?
What we have witnessed under Tinubu is not only poor performance, it is brain-bursting ineptitude; what may be described as wilful annihilation of the populace by the government.
As the heat wave spreads across the land causing havoc among the populace and darkness covers most of the country like an evil spirit, petrol and diesel are out of the reach of the mass of the people and hell has no better definition than Nigeria under Tinubu.
Yet Mr Dele Alake, probably living on the moon, tries to convince us that a dog is actually a monkey.
And the question is: who’s the monkey?
