How Nigeria can achieve 24-hour power supply – MD/CEO Abuja Disco, Chijioke Okwuokenye

The Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, Chijioke Okwuokenye, tells NAOMI CHIMA about his career and other issues

Beyond being the MD of AEDC, how would you describe yourself?

I am a father, husband and son. In fact, as we speak, my parents are currently on a visit to my house. I am more of a family person. I love to have fun, but I would rather be inside than outside. So, being with family or reading are my two favourite things to do.

What is your educational trajectory?

I am from Delta State, Aniocha North Local Government Area, but I was born in Benin, Edo State. I lived all my life in Benin and attended the University of Benin, where I obtained my first degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and my master’s degree, with a major in electrical power systems.

What are some of the memories and values that your childhood instilled in you that still help you today, especially in your role?

I started off as a very restless child. Some people would call it mischievous, but looking back, it wasn’t mischief; it was just too much energy. Well, I had very good parents.

My dad realised at a very early stage that I was full of energy and that there was a tendency for me to misplace that energy. So, from a very early stage, my dad found a way to redirect me. Even when I got into higher institution, my dad made me pursue two degrees at the same time.

My dad just felt that if I ever had time on my hands, I would be mischievous.

That made me very passionate about things I believe in. So, if I don’t believe in something, you can’t force me to do it. Somehow, it made me appear stubborn, but it wasn’t about being stubborn; it was about knowing what you want and truly believing in it. I turned out to be a good child.

Was engineering a career path that you chose intentionally?

In my case, my dad was a civil engineer. So, at a very early age, I learnt to go to site with him. We started hands-on engineering practice, which was civil engineering, but while he was doing civil engineering, there would always be the guys coming to do electrical work.

So, I was exposed to engineering very early, and I knew from a very tender age that I wanted to be an engineer, even though, at some point when I got into my senior secondary school years, I thought I wanted to study law.

Take us a little back to how you joined the power sector in Nigeria.

The Benin Electricity Distribution Company was recruiting for distribution substation operators. They said they were looking for young electrical engineers who had OND qualifications to become operators. I had an equivalent qualification then, the Advanced National Technical Certificate.

So, my dad said it was an opportunity. I agreed and applied. That was it.

Before becoming the MD and CEO of AEDC, what did you imagine the job would be like, and what has it turned out to be?

I was under no illusion that the job would be difficult. And I say that with all sense of discretion. The job is challenging because there is, for me, a lot of misunderstanding among both customers and stakeholders.

But what has been different is the level of support I have received from my team members. When validation comes from those who work with you and work for you; when those who work with you come to trust you, not because of your position but because they respect your capabilities, I think that’s my greatest surprise and source of gratitude when it comes to the job.

There is no greater comfort or motivation than that. Apart from that, I think everything I’ve seen was expected.

What was the toughest phase of your early career, and what did it teach you?

There would be two.

The first was when I had to combine work and school while doing my master’s degree. That period was really tough. You cannot sacrifice work performance for education, and I had to create that balance.

That meant sometimes having to work 48-hour stretches just so I could have time to go to school. That period was tough, but it paid off.

Another tough period was when I had to leave my family in Benin and move to Port Harcourt (Rivers State) to lead the due diligence for the takeover of one of the privatised discos.

It was like being thrown into deep waters, and nobody knew what to expect. It was a very uncertain period, but we got the job done, and I’m proud to say we did a very good job in taking over Port Harcourt and transforming it to where we left it.

Today, it is also one of the best-performing discos in Nigeria, and I’m glad to be tied to that history.

When did you first realise that you had the qualities to lead people and an organisation such as the one you head today?

Leadership is not something you just come into. At every stage in life, you will find yourself entrusted with responsibility if you present yourself and demonstrate leadership skills.

People don’t just wake up one day and realise they are leaders. No. At every stage or phase in life, you can demonstrate leadership. So, it’s not something that just happened.

Over time, I’ve had the opportunity to practise leadership in various facets of my life and career. Yes, this is the biggest role I’ve had in terms of leading people. To have the privilege of leading a workforce of over 3,000 people and being accountable to more than 1.2 million customers is no mean feat.

Most times, it’s not always about the pay; it’s about the ability to gain experience, especially the experience of leadership.

In an organisation, you would see that many people shy away from taking responsibility. But with responsibility comes leadership. So, if you always put yourself in a position to take up responsibility, people will naturally entrust responsibility to you.

At every step, you will make mistakes, but they become learning points. You start to learn and hone your leadership skills and, all of a sudden, you realise that people start saying, “He’s a leader.”

What was the defining moment that changed the trajectory of your professional life?

I think it was taking the risk of leaving and joining the newly privatised Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company. Now, I realise that every point of uncertainty, every point of chaos, truly creates new opportunities if people are able to see them.

When the privatisation conversation started in Nigeria, I told my friends that privatisation would bring a lot of investment. So, I felt that the next big thing was going to be the automation of the power sector.

I took my money, gathered my resources and went to Siemens for training in supervisory control and data acquisition systems. That was in 2012. Privatisation happened in 2013.

So, it was a mindset thing. A lot of people saw privatisation as a bad thing. They thought they were coming to take away our jobs and frustrate us. In fact, the biggest narrative was that it was going to fail.

But as far back as 2012, I saw it as an opportunity to change the narrative of the power sector. For me, that mindset has not changed. I see my role every day as that of a change agent.

The intention is to demonstrate that, in Nigeria, we can provide reliable and uninterrupted power supply to our populace. It’s something I’m passionate about and have always been. That was why I studied electrical engineering.

In fact, I had a lecturer, of blessed memory, at the University of Benin in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He would challenge every one of us that if we came out and called ourselves electrical engineers and were unable to fix the power sector in Nigeria, we were all failures.

I think that statement has never left me. It’s about fixing the power sector in Nigeria, and that has been the driving force.

Did you envision that you were going to be the MD/CEO someday?

I would be lying if I said I never envisioned that I would become the MD/CEO of one of the discos someday. If you’ve prepared and positioned yourself for it, you should expect it.

Before this, I was the Chief Commercial Officer for Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company. I left there and became the Vice President, Technical, at Konexa, a renewable energy company. Then I came back to the disco as the Chief Operating Officer. So, normally, you would expect progress.

As long as you keep developing yourself, adding value to yourself and to every organisation you find yourself in, you naturally expect progress. So, yes, but it came sooner than I thought, and for that, I’m very grateful.

I’m grateful to the board that decided to take a chance on me because, really, it was a chance. I was recruited as the Chief Operating Officer when the opening came, and they said, “Let’s give a young man a chance.”

I want to say thank you to the CEO, Tony Elumelu, and Owen Omogiafo. They’ve really been a very strong part of the success, both on the job and in getting to this position.

From your point of view, what is the single biggest bottleneck preventing the country from achieving reliable nationwide electricity supply?

If you were going to bring it down to a single silver bullet, I’ll tell you that it doesn’t exist. But, there has been a combination of reasons and, at the heart of it, at the risk of sounding offensive, I would say it’s been a combination of wrong decisions, mismanagement and a lack of accountability.

• TCN announces five-hour power outage in Niger 
• NSCDC arrests ex-AEDC worker, others over N350m cable theft
• Parts of Abuja to experience power outage Sunday — TCN

And that’s why, when I go back and I’m asked, “What is the transformation of AEDC? What is it hinged upon?” I would say it’s hinged upon governance.

I told the Minister of Power that there’s no new law, no new project or new policy he is going to imagine or implement that would change anything. He just needs to hold people accountable.

So, I think it’s years of unaccountability.

Do you think we can achieve 24-hour power supply in Nigeria?

The answer is yes. If I didn’t think we could achieve it, I would not be in this job. That’s the truth. I would still be doing renewable energy, where I can take a small community and give them uninterrupted power.

I can tell you that there are places in Nigeria where there is uninterrupted power supply. They have not experienced power outages. Mini-grids are doing it. We did it with a mini-grid when I was with Konexa.

But the question is, how then do we attain this on a larger scale? Because only by doing this can we drive industrialisation and create the economic growth we need. So, the fact is that, yes, it can be done. And yes, we will get it done.

What do you think consumers misunderstand about how the electricity value chain actually works?

There’s a lot of misunderstanding among consumers, and I don’t blame them. I tell my team every time this comes up that you can give all the excuses you want to give, but at the end of the day, what’s important to the consumer is that they have power.

In the same vein, consumers should also understand that power is like every other commodity. Power goes this way, revenue must go the other way, and the revenue must be equal and equivalent to the power that is being supplied.

For us to get that balance, power must be rightly priced and 100 per cent accounted for. That is the equation. You cannot go to the bakery and buy bread for N100, then come back and sell it for N50. Even if you sold all 100 loaves, if you sold them below your cost price, you would have run into a shortfall and would not be able to go back and buy more products.

In the same vein, if you buy 100 loaves of bread at N100 each and return to your shop, and realise that you can only account for 50 of those loaves, even if you sold them at N100 or N50, you still would not have enough money to go back and buy the entire quantity. That’s the way power is.

What does AEDC need to do better when it comes to serving consumers?

We need to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of service. I’m not going to come here and tell you that we are providing world-class service. The fact is, we are not. And, that is because of a number of reasons. But, whatever those reasons are, we must surmount them and get to a point where our customers can turn on a switch with 100 per cent assurance that power will come.

Now, we will not get there everywhere at the same time, but we must start demonstrating that there is a pathway to achieving this goal. Once we start showing that, I think we will improve confidence among our customers that this can be done.

And if they do the things we say they should do, such as paying their bills, if they don’t steal energy, if they secure infrastructure against vandalism and destruction, then we will be able to deliver this.

So, it is for us to take that first step of demonstrating that we are able to do this. We have a lot of qualified engineers, and it’s time we started showing that our skills and experience count and can deliver on customer expectations.

Some time ago, the presidential villa announced the use of solar power and Nigerians complained. What does this tell you about the state of Nigeria’s power supply?

I understand the frustration among Nigerians. And, I think all that conversation was due to a lack of proper understanding.

One of the issues we have is the fact that there is not enough power from the grid to serve every customer, whether you like it or not. That’s the fact. And that’s why there is always going to be load shedding.

One of the ways to overcome this is to start deploying distributed generation, which we are doing a lot of work on. So, you are bringing generation closer to where the demand is, allowing you to blend both grid power and distributed generation. That way, you achieve two things: reliability and a reasonable blended cost of energy, because grid power is cheaper.

The State House has always supplemented grid power using diesel generators, and diesel generation is far more expensive than solar and other sources of generation. All they did was say, “We are replacing our diesel generation with solar.” The State House hasn’t moved away from the grid. Solar and battery are intermittent sources, so you would still need the grid to supplement them.

All they did was replace existing diesel generation capacity. For me, at this point in Nigeria, every effort to bring in additional generating capacity should be embraced.

We will open ourselves up to every form of collaboration that ensures our customers get reliable service. So, for me, there was no need for all the hue and cry about the State House trying to bring in solar power. It’s all for the good of the sector.

How do you tackle energy theft, illegal connections, metering gaps and collection losses without making genuine customers feel like they are being punished for the actions of others?

The way to do this is to be able to scientifically discriminate between those involved in these vices and those who are not.

We have a lot of investments going into getting to the point where we can clearly say, on this transformer, this is the level of losses, and these are the customers most likely responsible for those losses. Then, we are able to properly channel our efforts towards recovering the energy from them.

It’s quite a long journey, but it is one that we have started, and we are committed to seeing it through. We are doing a lot in terms of smart distribution network deployments so that we can remotely and effectively monitor what is happening across the grid and properly identify those who are engaging in various forms of infractions.

I cannot over-emphasise the fact that energy theft is a national menace. In fact, I tell people it should be declared economic sabotage and dealt with in that way, because we can’t keep saying we want to improve capacity on the grid while people choose to steal that energy. That effectively discourages investment in the sector. It’s a big challenge, but we are committed to solving it.

How is AEDC preparing for the electricity company of the future, with technology?

It will surprise you to know that the electricity company of the future is already here and alive in Nigeria. We’re doing a lot with a number of international organisations in piloting and demonstrating smart distribution networks at AEDC.

I have already talked about interconnection with distributed generation. We are currently speaking with the Ministry of Works to interconnect the solar power plants to the grid. We want to do the same with the State House.

We are currently in the process of deploying battery storage solutions in two areas of our network to ensure that industrial customers get uninterrupted power supply. It’s interesting to know that we have brought Nigerian Breweries back into the Nigerian distribution network, utilising batteries and inverters. We did that for their Kaduna plant, and it was the first time that technology was deployed in Nigeria. So, now we want to do it at scale for our industrial customers.

We’re currently working on technologies that use drones for customer migration and monitoring. That pilot is currently ongoing. So, the distribution company of the future is here.

I think AEDC is on the right path in this regard, and I’m really looking forward to what the future of AEDC will be when we have been able to implement most of these initiatives.

Beyond transformers, meters and megawatts, what kind of AEDC do you envision in five years’ time?

There was a dream or a picture that my mentor, Matthew Edevbie, sold to me. He said, ‘I want PHED to be a company where, when you close from work, you will wear your coveralls and walk into a bar, and someone will say, “That is a PHED staff member. Give him a bottle of beer.”’

That was the picture he sold to me when he recruited me, and that picture has never left my head.

So, in five years’ time, I want an AEDC where customers would take reliable electricity for granted as the norm. Customers would see AEDC staff, walk up to them and say, ‘Thank you.’

Also, an AEDC where staff will walk into a place, do their jobs and leave without asking for a bribe or appreciation. People will even give them money and they’ll say, ‘No, thank you. We’re just doing our job.’

They will take pride and satisfaction in the job we do because we’ve been able to take care of them to the point where they are happy doing their jobs. Because, really, our service is a service to humanity.

What is your hardest challenge about being a CEO, and how do you sort it out?

The hardest challenge about being a CEO is knowing that you are responsible for more than 3,000 people; knowing that every decision you make every day ends up impacting somebody’s life.

I sort that out by convincing myself every day that the decisions I make are always for the greater good. I try my best to ensure that I do that so that I can go home and sleep comfortably with my conscience.

What is your favourite food?

My favourite food would be good food.

How do you relax?

I am a very passionate Liverpool fan. And I love to sing, so you will find me sometimes doing karaoke. I think that’s one of the most relaxing things.

I do play squash when I have time. With my family, if we are not watching football, we’ll watch movies.

Also, I don’t get enough sleep. So, every opportunity I have to sleep, I would sleep.