IN January 2014, a coalition of advocates, including Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN; Jiti Ogunye and Tokunbo Mumuni, both senior lawyers; and I wrote to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, inviting it to “to investigate the allegations of fraud detailed by the two committees set up by President Goodluck Jonathan in the wake of the 2012 fuel subsidy crisis.” It failed to do so. Ten years later, the EFCC is now preoccupied with chasing after cross-dressers. How it got so derailed bears attention.

At the beginning of this past week, Nigerians woke up to the story that a demographic of energy users, described in the language of the industry as “Band A” and constituting roughly about 15% of the approximately 12 million official subscribers to electricity in the country, will have their energy tariffs raised by 230.8%. They claim the four other bands will be unaffected. That’s false. Tariff regulation in the energy sector in Nigeria is the primary responsibility of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, a body created originally under the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act in 2005 which was repealed and replaced in 2023 by the Electricity Act. 

For some time prior to last week, various news media had sought unsuccessfully to confirm from the NERC the veracity of information suggesting that it had reached a decision to upwardly review the electricity tariff or that it had plans to do so. When it broke the story on April 2, Bloomberg, a private and foreign news agency, credited “people in the presidency with knowledge of the matter”, suggesting not only a decision with a long gestation period but also that one that had the active authorization of the presidency. The implication is that when it initially denied to Nigerian news sources that it had such plans, the NERC had dissembled.

The day after the Bloomberg story, on April 3, NERC confirmed the accuracy of the report. On the same day, it released the text of the applicable statutory instrument, dated March 28, which designated the commencement date as April 3. 

The energy minister, Adebayo Adelabu, chimed in, explaining that the decision was because Nigerians keep their deep freezers plugged even when absent from home. This energy minister is so out of touch, he doesn’t know that deep freezers need constant electricity. But how could he when all he does is prance about in private jets.

For context, the Energy Progress Report issued jointly by the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation, among others, in 2022, conservatively assessed over 92 million Nigerians as without access to electricity. This is at the very bottom of the global energy league. The NERC claims that one of its reasons for the secret energy tax is to “attract more investment into Nigeria’s power sector.” This is what one of my old teachers called “future speculative tense.”

For starters, the new tariffs foster undue discrimination contrary to Section 116(2)(e) of the Electricity Act of 2023 which requires the Commission in setting tariffs to “avoid undue discrimination between consumers and consumer categories.”

The principal crisis with energy consumption currently is not generation but transmission. The country is unable to evacuate anything close to what it generates. To achieve an increase in energy supplied to or enjoyed by any band, therefore, the Transmission Company will have to create energy hunger in a band somewhere in the consumption ecosystem. 

So, to increase the quantity of energy supply that it guarantees to the Band A customers, NERC has to ensure reduction in what is transmitted to those at the bottom end of the bands. In other words, the increase of transmission to Band A customers is achieved by eviscerating supply to the roadside vulcanizer, the neighbourhood Mama-Put restauranter, the welder, all of whom will suffer denial of energy.

This pricing strategy is also poorly reasoned. The Band A users whom it supposedly favours are mostly in a position to transfer the burdens of the higher tariffs to consumers, most of whom are in the lower bands. This hits lower band consumers with a double whammy. By imposing energy hunger on them, it threatens the livelihoods of micro, mini and informal entrepreneurs and will put many of them out of business. At the same time, it will increase their costs of consumption. Unable to pay the new prices of goods and services, they will vote with their feet, which will hit revenues, profitability and viability of industry, leading to loss of jobs, loss of tax take and ultimately burdensome social costs. 

What emerges is that the new tariffs are effectively a regressive energy tax on the poor. In a country already afflicted with prohibitive insecurity, even further rise in insecurity is foreseeable.

It became clear also during the week that NERC chose to adopt this most consequential of decisions for citizens, employers and consumers in utmost secrecy. To preclude predictable public furore about it, the NERC also garlanded the decision making with a bodyguard of lies. Not satisfied with this, the release of the statutory instrument coincided with a pattern of coordinated online behaviour which clearly suggested that the Commission had actively recruited a gang of digital influencers and bloggers in order to create maximum distraction from the measure.

One source of such distraction was the EFCC. As the NERC rolled out this prohibitive energy tax on April 3, the EFCC procured the high profile arrest of Idris Okuneye, a transactional transvestite, better known as Bobrisky, on impressive charges of “abuse of the Naira” and alleged money laundering. With unremitting alacrity, the Commission first paraded Bobrisky, a practice that has repeatedly been declared unlawful by courts in Nigeria. Thereafter, they arraigned him before the Federal High Court in Lagos. 

The law that establishes the EFCC defines “economic and financial crimes” to mean “non-violent criminal and illicit activity committed with the objectives of earning wealth illegally either individually or in a group or organized manner thereby violating existing legislation governing the economic activities of government and its administration.” At the court, the EFCC dropped the two counts relating to money laundering, ultimately charging Bobrisky only with crimes connected with so-called “abuse of the Naira.”  

Having dropped the only charges that could remotely fall within the purview of economic or financial crime, the EFCC forfeited any claim to acting within the law or in the public interest because abuse of the Naira, whatever that means, is outside the statutory scope of crimes that it can prosecute. Yet, in a mere 48 hours, the EFCC processed Bobrisky through the entire gamut of criminal justice from arrest to conviction, setting a Nigerian record in prosecutorial diligence.

It becomes evident, therefore, that the charges against Bobrisky were an artifice for persecuting a person whose life choices are a tad unusual. The EFCC lent itself to this despite the fact that Lagos, where Bobrisky lives, decriminalized the Victorian crimes of “unnatural offences” long ago in 2011. Nor does the leadership of the EFCC remember that over half a century ago, Uzoma Odimara freely promenaded as a cross-dresser and entertainer around the country under the name “Area Scatter”.

In the week in which the EFCC bungled and threw the biggest corruption case in the country in a quarter of a century, it takes unique institutional commitment to frippery to reduce its core business to chasing cross-dressers. In targeting Bobrisky as it has, the EFCC arguably sought to achieve the twin objectives of distracting Nigerians from the NERC’s steep and unlawful energy tax while at the same time pressing home a blinkered wedge advocacy. 

In so doing, the leadership of the Commission clearly abused the sacred instrument of prosecutorial prerogative and showed itself as either idle or misguided, if not both. When this was brought to their attention, they descended into threats, bluster and cringe-worthy trade in mangled adjectives. One concerned citizen responded that “EFCC has gone rogue.” 

Ten years ago, citizens looked to them as part of the solution. Today the EFCC has become part of the problem.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

THE year 1984 was quite a trying one for the country. The military, which had five years before, handed over power to civilian leaders, had returned like a badly treated Miliary Tuberculosis. It was on rampage, smashing all other powers in the country. To deal with the press, the regime, led by the duo of Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon, issued Decree 4 of 1984 under which falsehood and truth were punishable offences.

It adopted terror as state policy. For instance, it introduced a War Against Indiscipline, WAI, campaign in which Nigerians were given corporal punishment on the streets not based on any investigation or trial, but the whims and caprices of soldiers and security agents. Student unions were smashed and some of their leaders like Lanre Arogundade, then President of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, were abducted on the streets.

Also, retroactive decrees carrying the death penalty on cases like drug trafficking, were enacted and executed. Nigeria was in a war declared by the military Generals on the populace. However, the regime found the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, a formidable foe and tried various means of conquering it. It saw the 1984 NLC election as an opportunity to take over the Congress. But the leading candidate was a stubborn radical, John Enas Dubre. So, pro-state unionists got a court injunction disqualifying him. But rather than allow state agents to take over the Congress, the radical unions swung support to an honest but obstinate Ali Chiroma. He won the election.

Chiroma’s non-radical posture, his being the Principal, School of Health Technology, Maiduguri and, his quiet disposition, seemed to have suited the regime. But the country was in for a shock as he came out fighting, boldly leading workers and refusing to back down. The Chiroma leadership demanded that the regime stopped its mindless mass retrenchment of workers and, delayed payment of salaries. It rejected the ban on strikes insisting that workers have a fundamental right to work or refuse to work. It defended the student movement and rejected the ban on cafeteria system. It sided with the press against the regime. Chiroma publicly demonstrated this by personally attending sessions of the Decree 4 trials of the ‘Guardian Newspaper’ journalists, Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson.

The nation heaved a sigh of relief when a palace coup on August 27,1985 swept away the Buhari-Idiagbon dictatorship. Although the new leadership of General Ibrahim Babangida was more subtle, it turned out to be deadlier. When the regime tilted towards taking an International Monetary Fund, IMF, loan and its enslaving conditionalities, the NLC under Chiroma led the populace against it.

Babangida publicly announced the IMF rejection by the overwhelming majority of Nigerians in his December 13, 1985 broadcast. However, the regime went on to take the loan and implement the IMF dictates as the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP. Chiroma led labour to reject it and refused to back down even when the regime decreed that as far as SAP goes, There Is No Alternative, TINA.

The regime also made opposition to SAP, a crime. Chiroma rejected this, fought against privatisation and the increases in prices of petroleum products. For these, he and labour leaders like Dr Lasisi Osunde were detained without trial.

In leading the opposition to SAP, Chiroma said it is like a Kanuri proverb which says: “If you dig a hole to fill a hole, you have one more hole to fill.” In other words, that is a fruitless and destructive endeavour. He was right. Today, 38 years later, Nigeria is still suffering from the cancerous radiation effects of the IMF-imposed programmes. The IMF was actually a quack doctor administering the same drugs on all patients irrespective of their ailments. In 2015, in its quarterly magazine ‘Finance and Development’  the institution apologised, saying: “The IMF is unconditionally saying sorry for its dogged insistence, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s that countries’ capital accounts needed to be liberalized…We now know that much of that research was useless- no more useful than the types of studies that say homeopathy works…The other culpa is the insistence on austerity.”

So, perceptive leaders with common sense like Chiroma were right, and their tormentors were wrong. Yet, Babangida has not apologised for ruining Nigeria with SAP and, the useless but highly toxic austerity measures. Another arena of confrontation between the Chiroma leadership and the regime, was over draconian labour laws, especially those that prescribed life sentence or death penalty for striking workers. This was threatened against striking National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, members in May 1986, and later, used in sentencing 11 electricity workers for going on strike from October 5-8, 1988.

Back in 1986, the military regime accused Chiroma of trying to overthrow it. This followed the Friday, May 23, 1986 massacre of students and other citizens at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The regime established a panel of inquiry headed by Major General Emmanuel Abisoye and, appointed the NLC into the panel. But the Chiroma leadership rejected the appointment, insisting that arrested students must first be released and that those directly responsible for the killings should be suspended from office. The NLC then mobilised the public for a Day of National Mourning slated for June 4, 1986. The regime banned the NLC demonstration. Its propagandists claimed the date was an attempt to replicate the June 4, 1979 Rawlings coup in Ghana.

Chiroma responded that the regime’s mobilization “is an all-out war, by land, sea and air, against unarmed workers”. On the eve of the protests, Chiroma, his lieutenants and many activists were seized and detained nationwide. The NLC headquarters and its offices in the states were occupied by armed security men with the army deployed on the streets of Lagos and Kano.

When Chiroma sought re-election at the 1988 NLC Conference in Benin, the Babangida regime decided to stop him. First, it paid up all the outstanding NLC affiliation fees owed by the pro-government ‘Democrat’ unions in order to shore up their votes. When it realised that even this will not give it victory, the regime’s preferred candidate, Takai Shamang and his group, boycotted the NLC Conference but declared themselves elected.

When Chiroma was re-elected, Babangida immediately issued a decree removing his leadership and imposing an employer, Michael Ogunkoya, as NLC Sole Administrator. When the regime ordered Chiroma to handover to Ogunkoya, he, uncharacteristically, did not consult his comrades before doing so. There was also the issue whether it was appropriate for him to have accepted to be the Sole Administrator of NUPENG after General Sani Abacha banned its leadership.

Over the years, Chiroma continued to side with the populace until his departure on Tuesday, April 2, 2024.

In Nigeria, many policies that are supposed to catalyse economic growth end up making things worse and complicate matters for the citizen for whom these policies are designed to enhance their quality of life. Recently, two significant policies typify this: the petroleum subsidy removal policy and the floating of the Naira. Both policies are good and well-intentioned and would bring about substantial progress for people in the medium to long term.

However, the reality is that the policies ended up having a devastating effect on the populace. Removing the subsidy brought untold hardship due to sequencing and implementation issues rather than the principle of doing it. Somehow, we are still battling to survive the impact of the Naira forex rate merger.

The problem was not the nobility of the intention, but something was wrong with these policies’ conception, delivery, and implementation. This is against the absence of a planned execution that appreciated the impact assessment of a singular action on the economic dynamics such that by solving one problem, we created a bigger one.

The most recent 231% hike in the price of electricity units for Band A customers is another presumed good policy that might have an unintended adverse impact on the citizens. The main argument for a cost-reflective tariff must be distinct from that of subsidy removal, especially when the economics of the subsidy is yet to be proven, and the utilisation transition mechanism is not established or communicated. This policy may unleash hardship on the people, which is not the intention of the policymakers. To be clear, I am an advocate of cost-reflective electricity tariffs because of the big picture, and I will give reasons for this, but I am afraid I have to disagree with the current government approach.

Based on the evidence of the roll-out of the policy and the realities of this new electricity regime, it is unclear how the determination of the bands works because the criteria of customers enjoying the constant 20-hour power supply threshold are unsubstantiated and bogus, moreso for a largely illiterate population. This makes the case for tariff increase somewhat confusing and not transparent as there is no measurable way for the average consumer to track supply relative to billing. The result is that people may end up paying for darkness.

A gradual, sequential step to the ultimate destination of appropriate electricity pricing would have delivered a different result and minimised the adverse effect on the citizens. I have gone through the website of the regulator, if what the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has released is the master plan for implementing appropriate electricity pricing, it lacks details of the progression path to a total transition to a cost-reflective tariff regime and falls short of expectations in every respect. The result of this hurried announcement of a price hike, whether for band A, B, or even C clients, may lead to endless inflation and economic stress on the citizens. If we add the electricity price hike to the impact of petrol subsidy removal and spiralling food inflation, the average citizen faces existential shock.

However, I support the appropriate electricity pricing because it is critical for ensuring the sustainability, reliability, and affordability of electricity supply in Nigeria and promoting investment, innovation, and economic growth in the energy sector and beyond. Appropriate pricing ensures that utilities can generate sufficient revenue to invest in the maintenance, upgrade, and expansion of electricity infrastructure to enhance the reliability and quality of electricity supply. It incentivises consumers to use electricity more efficiently, thereby reducing energy consumption. It attracts private investment and, most importantly, helps reduce the financial burden on the government of subsidising electricity prices, freeing up resources for other priority areas such as health care, education, and infrastructural development. For the above reasons, I advocate appropriate pricing and support any policy that will open our electricity regime for growth and development. I understand the importance of electricity in Nigeria’s emerging economic structure.

Nonetheless, I do not support the current policy approach because it is counterintuitive and counterproductive. It will produce a counter-effect to the intended goal. The reasons for my position are evident: first, between 1999 and 2015, Nigerian Senate documents show that Nigeria spent N2.74 trillion on electricity, yet there was no significant improvement in the generation or power delivered to homes and businesses. From 2018 to 2020, we spent N1.7 trillion on electricity, yet 43% of our population, according to the World Bank, needs to be connected to the national grid. The inference to draw is that the electricity power challenge is beyond money.

There are systemic inefficiencies and corruption that no one has bothered to address. Asking consumers to pay more will transfer the inefficiencies to the populace. Second, NERC says only 15% or 1.8 million out of 12 million meterable customers are under Band A, which enjoys 20 hours of electricity per day, although this may seem unrealistic. This Band A must include factories, banks, telecom companies, hospitals, schools, malls, commercial centres, and residential areas of high-net-worth individuals. This increase in tariffs will mean an increase in the cost of doing business by 231%. The cost of school fees for private institutions will also go up by a factor of 231%. The implication is that the businesses will transfer the cost to final consumers, mostly people experiencing poverty who are already undergoing a cost-of-living crisis. Third, this may dampen the real sector, and many businesses may close. Besides, demands for goods and services may drop. The competitiveness and profitability of Nigerian firms may be in jeopardy.

The current approach will create inflationary pressures, reduce the competitiveness of businesses both locally and internationally, impact the household budget that is already battered by harsh economic realities, lead to business closures and resultant unemployment, negatively impact economic growth by constraining production and consumption, and ultimately may exacerbate already tensed social and civil unrest. Policymakers should consider implementing measures to improve electricity generation, transmission, and distribution efficiency and address issues related to tariff structures, affordability, and subsidy mechanisms.

Nigeria has a vast informal sector – micro, small, and medium-sized businesses – that is our economy’s backbone. These businesses account for over 40% of our GDP and 70% of employment. These businesses include vibrant youth-led innovation hubs in informal urban settlements across the country, small service and creative firms scattered across our commercial centres, and burgeoning small industrial production businesses dotted in areas where access to electricity is better and stable. A draconian hike in electricity without appropriate time to plan and adjust may spell doom for these businesses, already spending a chunk of their merger revenue on private power generation.

What could the NERC have done differently to implement a better pricing system? NERC could have delivered a well-thought-through transition plan over a six-to-nine-month period with a model allowing everyone to see what an increased tariff and electricity supply would mean. This way, citizens can adjust, make alternative arrangements and plan accordingly. Transparent communication and stakeholder engagement are essential for building trust and effectively managing potential social and economic impacts. The necessity of public sensitisation on matters that affect the livelihood of the majority must be balanced. There is a need to prepare the public before implementing any new policy that has a significant impact on livelihoods. Socio-economic reform must never be an ambush shock therapy; otherwise, the populace will react like an injured collective. NERC ought to match an electricity tariff adjustment plan with a post-reform plan to show how the government and stakeholders intend to mitigate the adverse impact of a hike in price and other critical reforms.

Conceptualising and adopting sound economic policies is necessary for increased output in the electricity sector, but more is needed: any policy is only as good as its implementation and impact. Policy implementation can fail for three reasons: the absence of complementary measures necessary to make the policy effective, nonalignment with reality, and the inadequate capability of prevailing institutions and administrative systems to respond to changes.

This electricity tariff hike, especially given our current socio-economic realities, is one policy that may hurt the people because of poor conception and disoriented implementation. Though a great idea, the timing, implementation approach and lack of complementarity of favourable institutional and economic capacity to mitigate the unintended effect of the hike in price may end up creating more significant problems than we already have. Inadvertently, we may be biting more than we can chew.

Dr Kenny Adeniran’s widely circulated “Geometric Power and the Yoruba Omoluabi” makes compelling reading. It brings an entirely fresh perspective on the national discourse on the place and importance of Nigeria’s first integrated power project in national development. The author argues that even though that the recently commissioned 188-megawatt Geometric Power thermal plant is located in Abia State, like the Aba Power Electric Company which takes power from the plant and distributes to nine of the 17 local government areas in the state, Yoruba persons in government have over the last two decades gone out of their way to ensure the realization of this key electricity project. He posits that these Nigerians of Yoruba extraction are driven by the Yoruba philosophical concept of omoluabi, or strong commitment to the public good rather than parochial or personal interests.

The instances which Dr Adeniran cites are interesting enough. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, following a request by then-World President James Wolfensohn and then-Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, carved out Aba from the national electricity network to generate its own power, distribute it and collect money from the people, so as to fulfill Aba’s enormous potential as an industrial centre. This was at a time both subnational governments and the private sector were not allowed to participate in the generation, transmission and distribution of power. President Obasanjo’s concession to Professor Bart Nnaji and his team at Geometric Power is historic and path-breaking.

Dr Adeniran recalls how the Yoruba Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Bola Onagoruwa, lost her job during the privatization of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) in 2013 because she wanted the National Council on Privatization (NCP) to respect the Federal Government’s 2005 agreement with Geometric Power on the development of the Aba Ring-fenced Area. It is, indeed, interesting that the mess created by the manner the EEDC was privatized was resolved by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Power Minister Babatunde Fashola, both Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs). As Dr Adeniran has revealed, both President Bola Tinubu and Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu acknowdge Geometric Power’s critical role in Nigeria’s power development and have ensured that relevant Federal Government agencies are on the same page.

The ordinary interpretation and summary of Dr Adeniran’s article is that Geometric Power is a key national project sited in Aba, Southeastern Nigeria, and that successive Yoruba people in government have demonstrated a profound understanding of this fact. The truth is that while Prof Nnaji and his team may come from the Southeast, the Aba Independent Power Project (IPP) is a huge national asset. It will definitely benefit Nigerians in all parts of the country.

Power Minister Adelabu and Prof Nnaji as well as Governor Alex Otti of Abia State have stated that Aba and the environs may not absorb more than 90MW right now. Therefore, the excess of 51MW, or 98MW as the case may be, will be sent to the national grid. This will mean improved power availability throughout the country. What is more, the 25MW hitherto supplied Aba from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) via the national grid will be taken to other parts of Nigeria, thereby making more electricity available to the Nigerian people.

During the commissioning of the Aba IPP on February 26, 2024, ex-President Obasanjo stated that with constant, quality and affordable power supply in Aba, such international manufacturing firms as PZ which have their production plants in the famous Enyimba Industrial City will produce more and more toiletries at lower costs. Power accounts for 50% of production costs in Nigeria because manufacturers practise electricity self-generation. As automative gas oil (AGO), popularly known as diesel, now goes for at least N1,700 per litre in the southern part of Nigeria, electricity may be responsible for a bigger percentage of production cost. However, all things being equal, the prices of Joy soap and other toileteries produced by PZ may not go up; they may even come down as a result of constant, quality and affordable power supply.

The same thing can be said about the costs of leather products. Many of the handbags, shoes and belts in Nigeria and neighbouring countries with the emblems of “Made in Italy”, “Produced in Spain”, “Manufactured in France”, and “Made in the UK” are actually produced in Aba, and given such labels as Gucci, Calvin Klein, etc. They are of high standards, but given well-established foreign labels for marketing purporses. This pratice is common in leading manufacturing nations like China and Vietnam.

Such large national institutions as the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeran Navy, Nigerian Air Force, National Youth Service Corps, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps can rely on Aba for their boots and belts. Needless to state, the Aba leather industry can depend on an endless supply of hides and skin from Kano and other places in Northern Nigeria. The onus is now on the public and private sectors in the North to drive the regeneration of the leather industry which centuries ago brough their region to international attention.

The army and similar organisations can also depend on Aba for their uniforms. Aba is famous for its fashion industry. Its suits can compete with the best anywhere. Its African designs are unrivalled. With the dollar so scarce in the country and the naira depreciating at an alarming rate which makes inflation unprecedented in our national history, Nigeria’s military and paramilitary organizations as well as the police force need to look in the Aba direction. As someone born and raised in this city, I know what Aba can offer.

Geometric Power may have been started by some Igbo people and located in their part of the country, it is a true national asset. While Vice President Shettima was being conducted around the Geometric Power premises on February 26, we saw on Arise TV which was beaming the ceremony live that the top Geometric Power official explaining the workings of the facilities was one Engineer Usman who hails from Borno, the same state as the vice president. There are many Nigerians from different states holding high positions in the Geometric Power Group. I am aware that the company goes for the best talent in the country and the world.

It is gratifying to watch Power Minister Adelabu tell Nigerians that the Tinubu administration is watching the Geometric Power Group closely with a view to replicating it in different parts of the country, so as to end Nigeria’s perennial and shameful electricity crisis which has impeded the country’s rapid progress. May there be more Geometric Power Groups throughout Nigeria.

Momoh, a lawyer, is a entrepreneur in Abuja.