The President of the Nigeria Consumers Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo, has criticised the lack of transparency in Nigeria’s power sector, describing its operations as akin to a “secret society” amid worsening electricity challenges.
Speaking in a conversation with this reporter on Saturday, Olubiyo said the persistent opacity around electricity market data, particularly invoices and operational metrics, was undermining accountability and deepening the crisis in the sector.
“Data on electricity market invoices should be made readily available promptly and swiftly. These are supposed to be real-time public documents that can be accessed openly and seamlessly,” he said.
He lamented what he described as the absence of data-centric governance in the sector, alleging that critical information is treated with secrecy rather than transparency.
“As it is, data centricity is missing and critical information is seen and treated like information meant for secret societies. We should refrain from running the power sector like a secret society,” Olubiyo added.
The consumer advocate also called for greater openness in grid operations, urging authorities to make national grid broadcasts from the National Control Centre and the Nigerian Independent System Operator publicly accessible to relevant stakeholders.
According to him, the situation has exposed deeper structural and technological deficiencies in the electricity market, particularly in data generation, collection, and aggregation systems.
Olubiyo noted that the failure to deploy modern technologies such as smart grid meters, telemetry systems, and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) infrastructure continues to weaken monitoring and efficiency across the grid.
He warned that reliance on obsolete or poorly installed interface meters, alongside faulty or default-mode equipment, creates loopholes for manipulation within the system.
“As long as we continue with obsolete infrastructure and fail to deploy effective monitoring technologies, the sector will keep experiencing gaming of the system and short-changing of electricity consumers, the government, and other stakeholders,” he said.
Using a vivid analogy, Olubiyo likened the current state of the power sector to “a highly priced but rotten dry fish,” suggesting that despite its high cost, the system is fundamentally flawed and requires extensive technical intervention to become functional.
The criticism comes against the backdrop of an ongoing dispute between the Federal Government and power generation companies over the reconciliation of debts in the electricity market.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, recently stated that the government’s liabilities to generation companies may be lower than widely reported, estimating that the figure could settle around N4tn, down from the frequently cited N6.3tn.
He explained that earlier estimates had been revised to about N2.8tn following an audit that adjusted for interest and foreign exchange components, adding that a significant portion of the debt is owed to gas suppliers.
However, generation companies have rejected the government’s position, insisting on a comprehensive reconciliation process involving all stakeholders.
The Executive Secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies, Joy Ogaji, questioned the basis of the revised figures, noting that the last joint reconciliation meeting was held in March 2025 and that no subsequent verification had been conducted.
She emphasised that accurate debt figures must reflect contractual obligations, including unpaid invoices, capacity payments, foreign exchange differentials, and other operational costs often excluded from official estimates.
The dispute underscores broader liquidity and transparency challenges in Nigeria’s electricity market, even as the Federal Government continues efforts to reform the sector.
It also follows the approval by President Bola Tinubu of N2.8tn as the verified portion of legacy debts owed to generation companies, based on an audit of subsidy obligations accumulated since 2010.
