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Electricity sector experts have raised fresh concerns over persistent inefficiencies, weak governance, and entrenched corruption undermining Nigeria’s power industry, more than a decade after its privatisation.
Speaking on the state of the sector, President of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Kola Olubiyo, said the industry has largely failed to meet public expectations since November 2013, when reforms took effect, reports Daily Independent.
Olubiyo argued that despite repeated assurances, the sector continues to struggle with fundamental delivery gaps, insisting that fixing Nigeria’s electricity challenges “is not rocket science” but requires discipline, transparency, and adequate financing.
According to him, the capital-intensive nature of electricity generation makes it difficult for government to rely solely on annual budgetary allocations, while systemic inefficiencies and inflated project costs further compound the crisis.
“In some cases, projects that should cost about N100 million are awarded for as much as N10 billion,” he alleged, attributing such discrepancies to what he described as “institutionalised corruption, greed, and weak accountability structures.”
He also highlighted high Transmission Loss Factors (TLF) as a major concern, noting that Nigeria’s losses—estimated at about 8 percent between 2013 and 2019—remain among the highest globally, despite efforts to reduce them to 6.5 percent.
Olubiyo explained that TLF represents energy losses across the value chain — from generation through transmission to final distribution — and warned that current levels are both unsustainable and vulnerable to manipulation.
He further alleged that electricity theft is not limited to end-users but occurs across the grid, citing the use of obsolete and defective metres, as well as the absence of effective monitoring systems.
The lack of functional smart metering infrastructure, he said, allows for inaccuracies in measuring energy generation, transmission, and distribution, creating opportunities for data falsification and revenue leakages.
“The absence of smart metre telemetry and proper grid accountability systems makes it difficult to track actual energy flows and enforce transparency across the sector,” he said.
Olubiyo stressed that without deliberate reforms in leadership recruitment, technical capacity, and institutional accountability, the sector would remain trapped in a cycle of unmet promises and poor performance.
He also called for the electricity industry to be insulated from political interference, urging stakeholders to focus on ongoing reform efforts rather than politicising sector challenges.
In a separate submission, energy analyst, Othman Quchi, said while the president may have made commitments in good faith, responsibility for outcomes ultimately lies with the leadership.
“In a presidential system, leadership is measured not by intentions but by results. The president appoints the team and must bear responsibility for their performance,” he said.
Quchi acknowledged structural and bureaucratic constraints but maintained that such challenges do not absolve the government of accountability.
Also weighing in, Professor of Energy Economics, Wumi Iledare, said Nigeria’s power sector problems are rooted more in weak implementation than lack of ideas.
He noted that the privatisation process failed to fully address the complexities of electricity market restructuring, particularly beyond revenue collection, leading to persistent market failures.
“Relying on political tools to solve what is fundamentally a technical and institutional problem will not work,” Iledare said.
He added that while decentralisation and reform policies are conceptually sound, their execution has exposed significant gaps, similar to challenges seen in other sectors.
According to him, the path forward lies in strengthening professionalism, improving technical execution, and fostering transformational leadership within the sector.
“The solution is not extraordinary ideas, but doing the basic things exceptionally well,” he said.
The experts’ views add to growing calls for deeper structural reforms in Nigeria’s electricity industry, amid continued public dissatisfaction over unreliable power supply.
