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Some experts in the power sector have urged the Federal Government of Nigeria to as a matter of urgency review privatisation of the power sector.
The experts, who spoke in Abuja on Sunday, March 16, 2025, said that privatisation of the power sector was a good idea, but however, added that it was not working.
They said that a comprehensive auditing and review of the sector would form part of efforts to addressing the challenges in the industry.
Privatisation of the sector in November 2013 was an initiative of the Federal Government to transfer ownership and management of power assets to private entities.
The move was to improve efficiency, attract more investments, and enhance overall electricity supply.
Eleven Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) and six Generation Companies (GenCos) were formed after the sector was privatised.
However, the transmission arm of the sector was retained by the Federal Government.
Mr. Princewill Okorie, the National President, Association for Public Policy Analysis (APPA), said that government should carry out a national audit of the privatisation.
According to him, there should be a national committee to audit the privatisation and to also review it.
Okorie said that the auditing should be carried out on investments made in infrastructure and the revenue collected from electricity consumers since privatisation began in 2013.
“The auditing should also entail investments by consumers, local, state government, Federal Government and the international community.
“Government should carry out a thorough auditing of the privatisation process including investments in infrastructure and how much has been extorted from electricity consumers from inception to date.
“Look at how much consumers have paid as tariff from inception till date and how much the investors have invested in the power sector,” he said.
Okorie said that based on the auditing of the sector, discussion on reversing the privatisation policy would be considered.
According to him, when the privatisation of the sector took off, the conditions or criteria that are to be met by investors have not been met.
“It was not even done on a sincere note and the data used was not correct.`
“How can you privatise without adequate investment, and it was done in a way to make the citizens become cash cow.
“Now, the citizens are the ones that are being exploited. What they call privatisation in my opinion is extortion from citizens,” he said.
Okorie said that the audit of the privatisation process would precede the reversal.
Mr. Uket Obonga, the National Secretary, Nigeria Electricity Consumers Advocacy Network (NECAN), also called for a review of the privatisation.
Obonga said that when the issue of privatisation came on board, Nigerians were happy that investors were coming to invest in the sector.
He said that privatisation was supposed to bring massive improvement and more infrastructure into the power sector but nothing seems to have improved.
“So where do we go from here? What are we really doing? The privatisation that was well conceived has not really worked.
“So let there be a deliberate review of the entire privatisation,” he said.
Obonga also urged the government to set up a technical forensic audit team to audit the power sector infrastructure.
According to him, Generation Companies (GenCos) have invested so much, and their capacity has scaled up to about 14,000 megawatts.
“Government should ensure that any Electricity Distribution Company (DisCo) that does not have certain amount of money to invest in infrastructure should not be allowed to continue to operate,” he said.
In a related development, the Chattered Institute of Power Engineers of Nigeria (CIPEN) has advised the Federal Government to use the country’s professionals to tackle the challenges in the power sector.
Mr. Israel Abraham, the President, CIPEN, while speaking on the epileptic power supply being experienced in the country currently, said that there was the need for the government to trust its own power engineers to solve the problem.
“Government must trust its own. You must trust your own people. As it stands, government does not trust its own people.
”You want to develop the power sector. Who are your appointees? Do you call the professionals to sit down to say, this is it, gentlemen, what do we do?,” he said.
Abraham said that when government want to look into the issues in the power sector, they should look for the experts in the system, sit with them and discuss the way forward.
According to him, CIPEN has written a lot of memos, papers and even stated their position.
He said that most of the countries that were developed today trusted their professionals and believed in them.
” So is the government trusting the power engineers to take over the power sector? If the government is doing that, then we will not say the responsibility is not on us.
”As it stands, we cannot take responsibility for what is not under our purview.
“We tell them this is what to do. They tell you they have their experts from other countries,” he said.
Abraham said that the only way to solve the problem in the power sector was to challenge the owners of the system who are the professionals in the country.
“You challenge them to say, we want answers. And then they give you, their terms. then you take the terms and work with it,” he said.
Abraham also said that to address the issue of epileptic electricity supply, it was required that power networks were domesticated locally in such a way that people could access them.
He said that there should be more local networks, so that people could connect their electricity supply, adding that this was where energy access comes in.
“The is where renewable energy like solar panels comes in as a way of stop gap measures where people can easily get that, especially in areas where people do not have access to the public supply.
“In some villages where you have solar system, most of them will never worry about being connected to the grid, they continue with their lives as they already have access to power.
“So, while working on the major ones to bring power supply, those ones can serve as energy access to the people,” he said.
Abraham said that CIPEN was also doing a lot by trying to collaborate with Ministries Agencies and Departments (MDAs) to see how the power sector could be enhanced.
By Constance Athekame
