“This decentralisation could spur innovation and regional accountability, particularly where local governments have the competence and will.”
When a Nigerian abroad expressed disbelief over his mother’s electricity bill, which surpassed his own in a country with a reliable, 24-hour supply, his frustration resonated far beyond social media. In fewer than 48 hours, his post had drawn over 300,000 views, becoming a digital shorthand for what many Nigerians know intimately: the absurd cost of an unreliable service.
That electricity remains a national crisis in Nigeria is not news. But the scale and shape of that crisis today reveal not merely technical dysfunction but a deeper economic and regulatory breakdown. It is now both a market failure and a governance failure. The country is abundant in energy resources, solar, hydro, and gas, yet electricity remains a luxury product, increasingly priced out of the reach of ordinary citizens.
Despite the unbundling of the defunct National Electric Power Authority into multiple distribution companies (DisCos), the promise of privatisation remains unfulfilled. A decade later, supply is still erratic, metering remains opaque, and the tariff regime has grown bewilderingly complex. Worse, a large portion of users still receive estimated bills, a relic of bureaucratic inertia that the regulator has failed to reform.
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For middle-class Nigerians such as Mojisola Adeyemi, a nurse in Lagos, electricity now consumes nearly half her salary. That she pays nearly N48,000 monthly for no more than ten hours of daily power is not merely a personal burden but a reflection of a system that extracts more than it delivers. The injustice is not limited to the working class. Professionals in urban centres, those categorised under the new Band A tariff, often receive higher charges for marginally better and still unreliable service.
In theory, the tariff structure aims to reward reliability. In practice, it penalises those who trust the system enough to participate. Consumers in Band A pay N206.80 per kilowatt-hour while receiving a service that frequently fails to meet the promised 20+ hours. Meanwhile, others in Bands B or C either self-generate or quietly accept the deficiencies, often with the aid of diesel or solar backups.
This leaves the national grid disproportionately funded by the least capable. With industries and commercial operators retreating to captive power generation, residential consumers bear the bulk of the cost. Over 249 firms now operate outside the grid, generating more electricity than the national supply itself. Dangote, Total, and Flour Mills have built private generation plants, not to gain a competitive advantage but to survive.
This silent exodus represents a structural hollowing-out of the power sector. It deprives the national grid of its most dependable customers and turns electricity provision into a survivalist pursuit for households. It also reinforces inequality: those with capital escape the grid; the rest endure its failures.
Regulatory silence compounds the problem. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is meant to safeguard consumer rights. Instead, it presides over a sector where transparency is absent, billing irregularities are endemic, and spears are introduced without the shift to ‘cost-reflective’ pricing may make sense in principle, but in practice, it has become an exercise in revenue extraction rather than service improvement.
The state’s failure to protect consumers has triggered an inevitable response: grid defection. Across the country, households are investing in solar panels, inverters, and mini-grids. Yet this trend, while rational for individuals, fragments the national energy landscape. It reduces scale efficiencies, undermines investment planning, and risks entrenching regional disparities.
Some hope rests in the Electricity Act of 2023, which grants states the authority to generate, transmit, and distribute power independently. This decentralisation could spur innovation and regional accountability, particularly where local governments have the competence and will. But the benefits will only materialise with coordinated investment, institutional capacity, and clear national standards. If not managed carefully, the result may be a patchwork of fiefdoms rather than a federated power strategy.
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What is urgently needed is a new compact for electricity in Nigeria, one that begins with honesty. Honesty about what the sector can deliver, what it costs, and who should pay. But it must also be fair. A cost-reflective regime that reflects only inflation and inefficiency is not reform; it is surrender.
The federal government must recommit to full metering for all households. Estimated billing should be phased out entirely. Tariff hikes must be tied to measurable improvements in service delivery. And NERC must evolve into an independent, consumer-focused regulator, not a passive conduit for the policy preferences of utilities.
If Nigeria is to achieve inclusive development, electricity must move from being a private gamble to a public guarantee. It should power factories, light classrooms, and refrigerate medicines, not just feed a revenue loop for the DisCos. The alternative is a continued slow unravelling of the national grid and a growing chasm between energy haves and have-nots.
The signal from that viral tweet was clear: Nigerians are not merely angry about high bills; they are disillusioned with a system that confuses price for value. In a country where darkness has become a national metaphor, restoring trust in power delivery is no longer a technical task; it is a political imperative.
