Let us call him Mr. Lagbaja. He works in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, but his family of four lives in Lagos. They live in the so-called highbrow Lekki Phase I. His estate enjoys 24 hours of electricity, courtesy of a combo of public power from Eko Electricity Distribution Company and two diesel-powered generating sets. His area is one of those power distribution districts designated as Band A for power supply where 20 hours of power a day is “guaranteed” at the cost of N209.50 per kWh.
In a month Lagbaja spends approximately N800,000 on power; that is well over N9 million a year. This is purely for domestic consumption; not commercial and not industrial. His house has many electrical and electronic appliances. N9.6 million is slightly more than the gross annual pay of a senior professor in a Nigerian university. Before the Band A palaver, Lagbaja’s monthly power spend was ~N300,000.
And the situation may get worse because Lagbaja is about to pay more for power as his estate management has indicated that it is no longer able to guarantee 24 hours power at the rate of about N260/KWh to take care of both the public power and the diesel generators.
This is not an isolated case. It is the lot of many high and not-so-high income families in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and other cities in the country where the government has introduced discriminatory electricity power tariffs. The N209.50/KWh is meant to apply only when the electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) provide at least 20 hours of power a day. However, this is still being observed in the breach because DisCos still bill their customers Band A rate, whether 20 hours per day of power is supplied or not. This is because they know that in Nigeria, rules are not meant to be enforced as the Olatunji Bello-led Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the primary agency meant to protect consumers, is still a lame duck.
But for areas under Band B or C, rates are much lower at N68.30/kWh. But you will need to pray to have power up to five hours a day. I visited a cousin in the Bariga area of Lagos two Sundays ago, and was unsurprised that there was no light. My last three visits have produced no light! My cousin told me that it is not uncommon to not have electricity in that part of Nigeria’s Centre of Excellence for upwards of three months especially when they have a faulty transformer.
Transformers are the priced property of DisCos. On the surface, when they get spoiled, it is the responsibility of their owners to fix them but you the customer would be waiting for go-dot to see them fixed. So, customers end up repairing and replacing them. Discos do not refund the money used for replacement nor give power credits to customers but they automatically take ownership of transformers provided by customers. Speaking of corporate robbery!
The DisCos themselves face at least four major challenges: mounting debts, poor power generation from the Generation Companies, obsolete distribution networks and lack of capital to invest. Talking about mounting debts, it is being argued that the DisCos are being owed a whopping N4 trillion by both the government that subsidizes consumers who are not under Band A, and some Band A customers who cannot pay the higher tariff. A perfect catch 22! N4 trillion is not small money any day. Using the 2025 budget of Adamawa State as a basis, that is the equivalent budgets of eight states combined.
Obsolete power equipment is as old as Nigeria! Every regime spends trillions of Naira to upgrade power equipment in the entire power value chain of generation, transmission and distribution but the output is always more darkness. Though our population has tripled in the last four decades, we still produce the same amount of electricity in the country. Outside of India with a population six times that of Nigeria, our country is the power generating set capital of the world because it is public power that is the standby power while the generators do the real work. Nearly half of the population live in darkness.
Though power generation and distribution have been privatized, challenges remain. There is hardly enough capital invested into the sector. Until the privatization of two of the three subdivisions of power provision, much of public investment in the sector used to end up in private pockets. Though government is still tenaciously holding on to power transmission, capital investment is still a problem. Just this week, the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu mentioned that Nigeria needs to invest at least $10 billion a year in the power sector for the next twenty years for there to be reliable electricity. Hear him: ‘For us to achieve functional reliable and stable electricity in Nigeria we need not less than $10 billion annually for the next ten to twenty years’. I can give interpretation to his statement: Nigerians should wait for another fifty years in darkness because there will be no $10 billion a year in the power sector. It needs not be; and it is not what this government promised Nigerians.
Forget the noise from government quarters, Nigeria is not an investment destination. Investments flow where the rule of law thrives and where the judiciary is truly independent. The United States of America just snapped up a $600 billion investment from Saudi Arabia because the Saudis know that their investments are safe there. The United Arab Emirate’s $1.4 trillion ten year investment plan even dwarfs Saudi’s. Insecurity is still rife in Nigeria, corruption is rampant, the lack of privatization of the power transmission infrastructure is a serious concern and endemic poverty, which makes it hard for majority of Nigerians to pay commercial rates for power, is a disincentive. Ice these up with the indiscipline in government at all levels, and you have a perfect investor apathy. Combined, these factors make capital to fly elsewhere.
No one can adequately quantify the impact that lack of reliable power has on the country. Apart from lack of quality leadership, insecurity and corruption, I rate “powerlessness” as our major national malady. To think that the country is awash with abundant natural power generation sources (gas, hydro, solar, coal, wind, etc.), but prefers to generate darkness is an absolute absurdity. Nigerians who can afford it are not waiting for twenty more years. Lagbaji would rather forgo other things to give his family constant power. Ebeano Supermarket, a major grocery chain in Lagos, is now almost exclusively on solar. Increasing number of companies and private estates are on mini-grids, away from the trouble of DisCos. But the costs are not smiling, as they say!
Short take
JAMB jammed our kids!
The Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, is a good man. Since he assumed office, he has been returning surpluses to the government, money his predecessors used to pocket. And just the other day, he genuinely empathised with the angry public and traumatized children who were messed up by his agency in this year’s unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME).
Oloyede is not the problem; he is only being asked to use a one litre car engine to drive a loaded trailer. It cannot work. From registering for the exams to getting exam venues to taking the exams, this year’s UTME was an accident waiting to happen. This column had argued in the past that JAMB or UTME should be consigned to the dustbin of history. An institution that was set up to conduct admissions examination for hundreds of students cannot automatically do so for two million candidates without major flaws.
There are just two options available to deal with the problem of admissions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. First and best option is that JAMB should only be involved in setting and enforcing minimum standards for admissions while individual schools carry out admissions themselves. I am not oblivious of the fact that those who are benefiting from a poor and corrupt system will ensure this does not occur.
Option two is for JAMB to conduct admission examinations only into federal institutions. Why should the federal government be the one literally admitting students into state and private institutions when it does not own nor fund those institutions? If the reason for doing so is still germane as it was when JAMB was set up, the federal government should also take over the admissions of pupils and students in all primary and secondary schools in the country.
JAMB should give way for those who need to go forward.
Esiere is a former journalist!
©️2025
