Key Takeaways
- Nigeria's 2013 electricity privatization shifted assets without capital to run them.
- The national grid fell to 1,132 megawatts on August 22, with 12 stations idle.
- DisCos collected N801.16 billion while 41% of active customers remained unmetered.
- A decentralized, state-led model already proven in Aba is proposed as the solution.
A hard-hitting open letter to President Bola Tinubu argues that Nigeria's 2013 electricity privatization was not a reform but a "transfer of custody." It calls for an end to a national pretense and a reset of the sector.
A Sector Defined by Collapse
The letter cites Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) data from April showing only 4,286 megawatts of 13,625 megawatts installed capacity was available, just 31 percent. On August 22, the grid fell to 1,132 megawatts by evening, with 12 stations including Egbin, Geregu, Kainji, Shiroro, and Zungeru producing nothing. "That is not an industry," the letter says. "That is a rumour of an industry."
The core accusation is blunt: the 2013 buyers had enough money to purchase assets but not enough to run them. GenCos say they are owed over N7 trillion, and a N4 trillion bond programme has been approved. Roughly N10 trillion of public money has gone into the sector in thirteen years, and the lights are still off.
DisCos and the Billing of Darkness
As of February, 51 million of Nigeria's 12.31 million active customers were unmetered, about 41 percent. Metering rates in Yola, Jos, Kano, and Kaduna ranged from 31.86 to 35.59 percent, while Ibadan has left nearly half of its 2.48 million customers without meters. Yet DisCos collected N801.16 billion between January and April.
"A meter is a machine that tells the truth," the letter argues. "An estimated bill is a machine that does not." It calls the practice "a levy" on a suffering people, enforced by a state-granted monopoly.
A Decentralized Alternative
The letter proposes community-owned mini-grids. An estate of 5,000 families could borrow N3 billion for metered solar generation, guaranteed by the state, with residents paying at cost plus a regulated 25 percent margin. States would power streetlights, health centres, and schools; the federal government would handle federal roads, hospitals, and universities. The Minister of Power would become a coordinator, not "the electrician of the Federal Republic."
The World Bank estimates unreliable electricity costs Nigeria $26 billion a year, while households and businesses spend $12 billion annually on generators. The African Development Bank says seven in ten firms depend on generators, losing three per cent of sales to outages. The Electricity Act 2023 already allows states to regulate their markets, and seventeen states have done so. Aba proved the model on January 23 when the national grid collapsed to 20 megawatts, yet 900,000 residents stayed powered by Geometric Power's 188-megawatt metered network.
The letter also notes the Federal Government has paid only N77 billion of the N1.859 trillion in subsidy invoices raised between April 2025 and April 2026, about four percent. It urges Nigerians to hold governors accountable, since electricity is now a concurrent responsibility.
Why This Matters
The letter reframes Nigeria's electricity crisis as a structural failure of privatization, not an infrastructure problem. With the legal framework for state-led power in place, the question is whether Abuja will embrace the Aba model or continue paying for a broken system.