NERC Moves To Raise Electricity Tariffs as Consumers Decry Paying For Darkness Instead Of Light

Nigerians are bracing for yet another round of electricity tariff increases, even as the nation continues to struggle with persistent blackouts, crumbling infrastructure, and a power supply that barely meets a fraction of its demand.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has signalled it is reviewing electricity tariffs across all customer bands, raising fears among millions of households and small businesses already crushed by soaring inflation and an economy that offers little relief. The planned review is being driven by rising generation and transmission costs, exchange rate volatility, higher gas prices, and mounting debts owed to power generation companies. While NERC has not officially announced a nationwide tariff adjustment, industry discussions and recent regulatory reviews have fuelled widespread concern that consumers across multiple bands may soon be forced to pay even more for power that remains largely unreliable.

This potential increase follows a series of earlier hikes that have left Nigerians asking a painful question: why are we paying more for electricity we do not even have?

Since the introduction of the Band A classification two years ago, consumers in that premium category have seen their electricity tariffs skyrocket. In April 2024, NERC raised the tariff for Band A customers from around N68 per kilowatt-hour to over N225 per kilowatt-hour – an increase of more than 240 per cent, with rates later climbing to over N230 per kilowatt-hour. Band A was designed for customers expected to receive at least 20 hours of electricity daily, effectively a premium service for a premium price. Bands B, C, D and E have largely remained under older pricing structures, but regulators may now extend tariff adjustments beyond Band A as operators continue to report major financial losses.

However, the reality on the ground tells a very different story from the official promises. Despite the massive tariff hikes, electricity supply remains critically stagnant. Average electricity generation hovers around 4,200 megawatts, while the 11 distribution companies ration about 3,618 megawatts across the country, leaving vast regional disparities. Yola DisCo receives the lowest allocation at just 50 megawatts, while Abuja DisCo leads with 634 megawatts, a gap that highlights the deep inequality in Nigeria’s power distribution. For millions of Nigerians, the national grid has become a symbol of failure. Grid collapses have become almost routine, the power minister has faced mounting criticism, and consumers across the country have reported receiving far fewer hours of electricity than the bands promise.

The frustration is loud and growing. In Lagos, residents have held protests after blackouts lasting five days. In communities where the Band A classification was introduced, residents have received monthly bills jumping from as low as N10,000 to over N41,000, with some areas seeing bills between N50,000 and N70,000. In Abuja’s Sun City Estate, residents have reportedly received as little as four to six hours of electricity daily despite paying premium Band A rates, with some spending up to N70,000 weekly on generator fuel to survive. In Port Harcourt, one school operator saw electricity bills rise from N300,000 to N1.6 million following forced migration to Band A. In Osogbo and Ede, consumers have told reporters that the guaranteed 20-hour electricity supply exists only on paper, with actual supply often dropping to 10 or 12 hours while the premium bill remains unchanged.

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Energy analyst Nick Agunle put it bluntly. Speaking on Arise News, he said Nigerians are now paying higher tariffs without any corresponding improvement in electricity supply nationwide. “People are paying more for power, but because the infrastructure has not been sorted, we don’t have extra megawatts in the system,” Agunle said. “You are charging people a lot of money for power that is not there.” He traced the roots of the crisis to the flawed privatisation of the power sector, noting that while generation and distribution were privatised, transmission remained under government control, creating a bottleneck that crippled the entire electricity value chain. According to him, private investors acquired generation companies and had the financial capacity to increase output, but the weak transmission network made expansion impossible because there was no capacity to wheel the generated power out to the market.

Civil society organisations have also demanded action. Two groups, the SubNews Empowerment Foundation and Profiles International Human Rights Advocate, issued a joint statement calling for the immediate enforcement of the service‑based tariff framework. They alleged that many Band A customers across major cities, including Lagos and Abuja, receive far fewer than the promised 20 hours of electricity daily despite being billed at premium rates. “Consumers are paying for a premium service that is simply not being delivered,” the statement said. “This is not just a service failure; it is a breach of trust and regulatory obligation.” The groups noted that under existing NERC regulations, any feeder that fails to meet the 20‑hour daily average for seven consecutive days must be automatically downgraded to a lower band, but they said these provisions are rarely enforced, leaving consumers to bear the financial burden without corresponding service delivery.

The Federal Government’s latest policy direction suggests the situation may worsen. Officials have indicated plans to migrate the power system to a full cost‑reflective tariff, meaning government subsidies would be completely removed and consumers would bear the full weight of electricity costs. The Minister of Power has argued this step is necessary for the sustainability of the industry, but critics warn it will push tariffs even higher, deepen hardship for households, and strain businesses. The Budget Office of the Federation has also declared that the Federal Government will no longer shoulder electricity subsidy obligations alone, calling the current arrangement fiscally unsustainable. Unpaid electricity subsidies have already grown into trillions of naira in arrears, with monthly outflows hitting N200 billion by early 2026.

The Nigeria Labour Congress has labelled the tariff hikes the highest form of fraud, questioning why Nigerians should be divided into bands at all. A human rights lawyer has also criticised the government’s plan to deduct trillions of naira from the Federation Account to fund power subsidies, describing it as punishment without performance. He argued that despite unprecedented increases in electricity tariffs, Nigerians have yet to see uninterrupted power supply, and the frequent collapse of the national grid has become a national embarrassment. “If trillions will guarantee stable electricity and lower tariffs, Nigerians might endure it,” he said. “But asking citizens to fund failure is unacceptable.”

For ordinary Nigerians, the looming tariff increase is just another blow in an economy that seems designed to break them. The current minimum wage remains N70,000, but inflation has eroded its value to near insignificance. Food prices have soared, transportation costs have risen, and rents have climbed, yet electricity remains a necessity that millions cannot afford to go without. Many small business owners already rely on petrol and diesel generators to keep their doors open, adding another layer of expense on top of already rising electricity bills. A nationwide move towards full cost‑reflective tariffs would strip away the remaining subsidies for all customer bands, pushing electricity costs even further out of reach for households already choosing between feeding their families and keeping the lights on.

Two years after the Band A experiment began, more than N2 trillion has flowed into the electricity sector through higher consumer payments, and another N501 billion has been raised from the capital market, yet the grid remains fragile, supply remains poor, and Nigerians continue to pay more for darkness than for light. The government’s answer has consistently been higher tariffs, but the question on the lips of millions has remained unanswered: when will the power actually come?

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