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There is something almost Kafkaesque about Nigeria’s electricity story, 66 years after independence, and yet the country is still unable to provide stable, uninterrupted electricity to its citizens. All the ingredients for generating electricity are abundant there; a country that proudly stands as the world’s sixth largest crude oil producer, the world’s largest cassava producer, and the world’s most populous black country. This raises an uncomfortable and disturbing question; are we cursed because we will never light up this country?
If Nigeria has electricity as the government claims, why are Nigerians still in the dark? The reality is, most Nigerians today have almost completely given up on the government to provide stable electricity, and the same government is shockingly reaffirming that through their actions.
After claims of billions of dollars of investment in the sector by the APC-led government over the past decade, the “bonding” of Nigerians into select colonies, forces them to pay the hard way. Add to that the institutionalized extortion racket called estimated billing, all under the guise of privatization of the sector, the question still remains; where is the electricity? After all, we as Nigerians are expected to celebrate megawatts as if they are trophies, use our hard-earned resources, after paying electricity bills, to repair our aging transformers and rejoice in it. We are also expected to cheer at the news of the power plant’s operation, and still return home to the familiar generators.
Nigeria recently recorded electricity generation and transmission above 5,000 megawatts, with available generation standing at 5,403.3MW. But the government admits that the improvements have not resulted in reliable electricity for many Nigerians. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission also reported that an average of 4,758MW was available for dispatch in August, of which about 4,102MW was utilized. And therein lies our strange paradox. We have electricity. But we do not have sufficient and reliable electricity.
The answer is not as simple as blaming generations. The generation and distribution of electricity involves complex process changes, with the infrastructure required to operate optimally. Not a bag of rice that can be produced, counted and taken home. Between the power plant and the socket in a Nigerian home is the entire process of infrastructure, regulation, transmission, distribution, maintenance, finance and governance. A megawatt trapped somewhere along the chain will provide no solace to the mother whose refrigerator runs warm, the barber whose cutting tools are silent, the laboratory whose equipment won’t stay on, or the small factory whose production line awaits “NEPA” like a supplicant before a reluctant king. Today, an entrepreneur does not calculate the cost of producing a loaf of bread. He counted the diesel. Tailor calculates fuel. The hairdresser calculates the fuel. Laboratory scientist calculating fuel. Hospital administrators calculate fuel. Household calculating fuel. Even small children doing homework have learned that the coming of darkness can also signal the coming of a generator. The generator has become Nigeria’s unofficial power generator. That should bother us. Not because the impact is detrimental to our pockets, but because the impact is detrimental to our lungs.
As an environmental chemist, I find this part of the national conversation deeply troubling. Generators are often treated as innocent mechanical saviors, a little metal deus ex machina that saves Nigerians every time the power grid abandons them. However, arson does not recognize political parties. Carbon monoxide and fine particles don’t know whether the generator belongs to a poor family or a rich business. Fumes from petrol and diesel generators enter the same atmosphere we breathe. Research into generator use in Nigeria has documented emissions including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and fine particulate matter. The World Bank also notes that diesel generator emissions include fine particles and black carbon, which impact respiratory and cardiopulmonary health, climate change and urban air quality.
These are hidden bills from unreliable electricity. We pay for electricity twice; First, the electricity bill, then we buy petrol or diesel to produce electricity that the electricity grid fails to distribute. And then, without looking at the numbers on the receipt, we pay for it again through noise, smoke, heat, maintenance, lost productivity, and environmental degradation. This is an economic absurdity that Nigerian society does not deserve. Therefore, Nigerian generators have become more than just equipment. It’s a symptom. This film tells the story of a country that gradually privatizes the burden of public infrastructure. Citizens become their own electricity providers, their own fuel buyers, their own maintenance personnel, and, sometimes, their own electricians. The state provides the electricity grid; citizens provide emergency plans. There is something deeply unfair in that arrangement.
Rich people might install solar power systems, inverters, and batteries. The midrange may operate a small generator alongside an inverter. Poor people may simply survive in the dark, or spend most of their income on small, expensive electricity purchases. Therefore, unreliable power does not make Nigerians uncomfortable. This stratifies them.
The World Bank’s current energy plan recognizes the magnitude of the challenge. Nigeria has committed to achieving universal electricity access by 2030 and is pursuing distributed renewable energy, including mini grids and self-sustaining solar power systems, as part of that effort. The DARES program itself is designed to expand access to environmentally friendly energy to more than 17.5 million Nigerians and replace hundreds of thousands of polluting petrol and diesel generators. Yes, it’s exhilarating, but encouragement is not electricity. Nigeria needs to move beyond the psychology of megawatt announcements and towards the reality of electricity delivered consistently to homes, hospitals, schools, laboratories, farms, workshops and factories.
The government must ask: How many homes receive reliable electricity? How many businesses can remain productive without switching to diesel fuel? How many clinics are operating without interruption? How many students study smokeless generators? How many factories are reducing their dependence on in-house production? How much particulate pollution do we avoid? It is a metric that transforms electricity from an engineering statistic into an instrument of human development. The country no longer needs ceremonial relations with the authorities. It needs to be functional.
We must also resist the temptation to imagine that a national electricity grid alone will solve every problem. Nigeria’s geography, population growth and uneven infrastructure make energy distribution an important part of this effort. Solar minigrids, battery storage, embedded power plants, and other decentralized solutions can help close the gap between the electricity system and society. But even here, we must avoid being sneaky. Energy transition cannot be another extraordinary phrase contained in government documents.
There is an African proverb that says that when the music changes, the dance changes with it. Nigeria’s energy music has changed. The population has grown. Cities have grown. Digital business has multiplied. Climate pressure is increasing. Diesel and petrol prices have changed the economics of independent power generation. Yet conversations about electricity still sometimes sound as if Nigeria is a country of several million people waiting patiently beside the national electricity grid. We are no longer that country, we are now a young, restless and increasingly urban country. Our electricity demand will not wait until infrastructure can meet it.
Meanwhile, generators will continue to run next to roadside shops, behind hospitals, outside restaurants and under the windows of children reading. And every cough is a small reminder that the price of unreliable electricity is not only measured in naira, but also in poisoned air, wasted man-hours, lost business, broken equipment, disrupted education and opportunities simply lost in the night.
The government says Nigeria has electricity, but the more important question is whether Nigeria has built an electricity system capable of turning electricity into prosperity. Until the answer is yes, those generators will remain our most faithful witnesses to the gap between what the country produces and what Nigerians actually receive, and that gap, more than any megawatt figure, is where the real darkness lies.
By: Dr. Sani Abdulrazak
