COVID-19 FREE ELECTRICITY: Palliative Or Loan To Nigerians? By Luqman Abidoye

Nothing rectifiesc out-of-control market failures like a healthy dose of government intervention and mountains of bureaucracy. – “George Carlin”

It is no longer news that Covid-19 caught all the world unprepared and has since then affected households, businesses, companies and even the government. The economy of most countries are already crippling as a result of the lockdown imposed by the governments in order to contain the spread of the virus.

Since people are forced to stay home, many have found it difficult to put food on their table as the daily bread come from daily hustle not to talk of having fund reserve for paying bills. It is indeed a hard time for many citizens, not only in Nigeria but all over the globe. The governments of some country are swift in taking decisions that will ease the pain of their citizens during the compulsory stay at home exercise as they introduced palliatives like rent free, water bill free, electricity bill free etc.

Upon hearing these relief packages by other countries, many Nigerians called on the government to follow suit and roll out palliatives. After several calling, the government later succumb to the plea and at that considering the introduction of electricity bill free for a period of 2 months. Undoubtedly, this a great step by the government but many questions are disturbing the mind of an average Nigerian and we believe there is need for adequate clarification before the deployment of the the package. The questions includes but not limited:

1. Is this really a palliative or we will be charge for it after the pandemic?

2. If this is a palliative, hope we are not going to experience blackout most of times?

3. April bill has been distributed already, are we going to pay or not?

Nigerians are eager to know the answers to the above questions and all legality must be ensured before deployment.