Congratulations to Nigeria and Nigerians today as we celebrate the 64th anniversary of our independence from the British crown. According to many credible sources listed at the end of this article, electricity generation in Nigeria began in the Lagos province in 1886, with the use of generators to provide 60kW of electricity to light up streets around the colonists European quarters in parts of Lagos Island, to ward off burglars at night. But that was just the beginning.

By June 1891 following calls on the colonists by highly placed and educated Lagosians and the acting governor of Lagos, George Denton, there was a proposed infrastructure policy formulated by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, containing the maximum cost-effective means of additional street lighting for Lagos. And by 1898, the colonial government began to generate power from the Lagos lagoon water to power the street lightings. The lights usually go off at 11 pm.

After the amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates, and Lagos Province in 1914 by Lugard, an electricity utility company named, Nigerian Electricity Supply Company, was established in Marina, Lagos in 1923. That set the tone for the supply of electricity to begin to spread to other parts of the country in this order:

Port Harcourt 1928, Kaduna 1929, Enugu 1933, Maiduguri 1934, Yola 1937, Zaria 1938, Warri 1939, Calabar 1939.

The first power plant built in Ijora in Lagos, had a generation capacity of 20 megawatts. Another power plant with a generation capacity of 85 megawatts known as the “Ijora B” plant, was also developed in the late 1940s and was commissioned in 1956 by Queen Elizabeth II. In the 1960s, additional 30.2 megawatts were added to the two-generation plants in Ijora. Kainji dam in Niger State was also commissioned in 1968 with an installed capacity of 760 megawatts. In 1978, three additional generation plants were developed, each having a generation capacity of 20 megawatts.

With these developments, an act of parliament established the Niger Dam Authority NDA, and tasked it to build, generate and utilize the hydro power generated by dams. The Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) which was earlier established under the electricity corporation ordinance of 1950, then assumed responsibility for purchasing the hydro power generated by the dams from NDA and distributing same to consumers.

A subsequent merger of ECN and NDA, birthed the National Electric Power Authority NEPA in 1972, a body that was saddled with both generation and distribution of electricity, to achieve efficient utilization of human and financial resources.

Then the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005, came into force and NEPA was replaced by the creation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria PHCN. Again in 2013, PHCN was subsumed by the creation of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission NERC, in section 31 of the EPSRA 2005, to take over the regulation of the electricity industry from the defunct PHCN and the electricity utilities have been unbundled into 18 successor companies, with 6 Generation Companies GenCos, 1 Transmission Company TransCo, (fully government owned), and 11 Distribution Companies DisCos.

This is the chronicle of Nigeria’s lamentable 138 years pussyfooting around the very vital issue of lighting up the country. From 1999 alone till now, over N5.85trillion has been blown away in the sector, yet this tunnel is still in grim and eerie darkness.

The claim from some government quarters that up to 40 percent of consumers are now getting up to 20 hours electricity supply under Band A, is as good an improvement as it is a far cry from the yawning expectations of both citizens and industry players. It is also not commensurate with a 138 year journey.

I will not worry too much about saying what we need to do. We already know but there are those whose only investment and whose only sources of the billions they own is the darkness over Nigeria. They are sworn to make sure that light will not come and blow away the billions they have invested in making sure this country mustn’t have electricity and the government is collaborating and unwilling to wield the law. So, as we celebrate our independence today, fellow Nigerians, let us be reminded that, there is no light in this tunnel and he who gropes in the dark is truly not independent.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.