If Nigerians are asked to describe the best known characteristics of the power sector, not many of them would mention generosity as one of them. It is a view gleaned from their everyday interactions with the industry, especially the part of it that interacts the most with ordinary citizens.
One Genco has however turned this narrative around in a spectacular manner. Right now, manna not unlike that from heaven is cascading in five different forms to the people of Borgu, Jebba/Bida, Kontagora and Yauri communities courtesy of Mainstream Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of Mainstream Energy Solutions Ltd, the generating company [Genco] that operates Kainji and Jebba hydroelectric dams.
Kainji and Jebba dams, situated on the River Niger, are this country’s largest hydroelectric dams. Mainstream Energy is the only genco in Nigeria that has a registered foundation, geared towards the empowerment of its catchment communities. It does these in the priority areas of health, water projects, education, empowerment and infrastructure/environment. It has also forcefully intervened to ameliorate the suffering of flood victims. When the COVID pandemic hit last year, the foundation rushed in with much needed help to the communities, hospitals and some state governments.
Mainstream Energy pumps one percent of its total annual turnover into its Foundation. This is a level of generosity unheard of in the Nigerian or even the international corporate world. These huge funds are managed and applied with the utmost transparency and with the utmost dynamism by a 7-member Board of Trustees headed by Alhaji Umaru Farouq Bako.
No wonder it has made so much impact within such a short time. Since it commenced operations in 2016, Mainstream Foundation has changed the face and the fate of dozens of communities in its entire catchment basin with very impactful projects. These have had a tremendous impact on the lives of citizens.
In four years 2016-2020, Mainstream Foundation intervened in 35 schools, built 89 school blocks comprising 194 class rooms, constructed and equipped 5 Community Health Centres and 4 clinics, and carried out nine medical outreach programs wherein 4,500 patients were examined by qualified doctors. The outreach also involved 22 VVF correctional surgeries, 32 cataracts and 133 general surgeries. 29 patients also got eye glasses as part of the outreach.
That was not all. In four years the Foundation also built 6 rice and 3 garri processing mills in order to empower communities. It drilled 121 boreholes in order to provide drinking water to more than 500 communities. It procured, installed and energized 23 electricity distribution transformers. It built 7 culverts and 4 bridges to link cut-off communities. As part of its capacity building program, the Foundation sponsored 42 candidates to the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria [NAPTIN]. It sent another 20 to the Federal College of Education, Kontagora for poultry/fishery training while another 6 were trained in carpentry. Each graduate got a starter pack to go and establish a trade.
Words alone cannot capture the beauty of these projects or their impact on human lives and livelihoods. One has to see some of the before and after pictures of dilapidated and utterly run down schools and hospitals to appreciate what was done. School buildings once fallen apart, with blown roofs and windows, were replaced by gleaming new structures, courtesy of the Foundation. Mainstream has erected rural clinics and hospitals where none previously existed. It also rehabilitated some old ones and gave them attractive and gleaming new looks.
Also beauties to behold have been the numerous boreholes it erected in various communities, including in schools and hospitals. Pictures of streams and open pools that once served as some communities’ only sources of drinking water help to bring on the impact of these boreholes. Solar panels and generators were also supplied in numerous places to power the boreholes and schools with reliable power.
Figures alone do not capture the impact of the numerous medical outreach programs that the Foundation carried out all over its target area. Rural and semi-urban folks flocked to these centres and got tested for health issues that had bedeviled them for years. Most notable were eye problems. Teams of surgeons ferried in by the foundation carried out cataract surgeries. Lo! and behold, men and women who had long given up on ever regaining their eye sights could see again. Their joy knew no bounds, as could be seen in videos.
Mainstream Foundation also sent dozens of youths to the Federal College of Education, Kontagora to learn trades, after which they got starter kits to help them establish small businesses. Numerous rural women also received empowerment support for their small businesses.
Also very impressive were the environmental infrastructure. Communities that were once unable to cross to their neighbours without the most arduous river crossings suddenly got culverts and bridges built by the Foundation. Numerous beneficiaries testified to how much it changed their lives and enabled them to move farm produce to markets.
Mainstream Foundation’s COVID intervention programs also surpassed all expectations. At the height of the pandemic, it donated medical equipment and items worth N500 million to Kwara, Kano, Kogi, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger states as well as to University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada and National Hospital, Abuja. It also extended much needed relief to flood victims at Kontagora’s Rafin Gora community, Yauri and the Zungeru IDP camp.
Probably no corporate entity in Nigeria has made so much impact on its host communities with its corporate social responsibility programs within such a short period of time as has Mainstream Energy Solutions and its Mainstream Foundation. It is a trail blazer in CSR. It has changed popular view of the power sector from an unfriendly harbinger of darkness to one that brings light, water, education, schools, infrastructure and tremendous local community goodwill. It is a very welcome change in the midst of grim news all around.
