For almost 53 years of Nigeria’s political independence, the Federal Government was the only investor that regulated, generated, distributed and marketed electricity in all parts of the nation. The development was fuelled by concrete reasons. First, many people felt it was the government that had the right financial muscle to invest in the capital intensive sector.
Second, many people thought that the sector was directly tied to the nation’s national security which should not be left in the hands of private investors. Also, inconsistent policies of past administrations made it unattractive for local and foreign investors to invest in the sector even when it became obvious that government had failed. From generation to transmission and from distribution to marketing, there are strong indications that not much accomplishment was made during the period.
Available data showed that power generation hovered between 1,000 megawatts, mw and about 2,000mw for a population of over 140 million through a greater part of the period. It was also difficult to transmit and distribute the limited supply of electricity to consumers in different parts of the country because of insufficient infrastructure and other challenges. These resulted in frequent blackouts and instabilities that impacted negatively on consumers. At the advent of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, power generation was a little over 2,000 mw while many parts of the country groaned under chronic darkness.
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