Metered electricity customers in Nigeria hit 5.8 million

Adebayo Obajemu

The number of electricity customers currently on prepaid meters across Nigeria has risen to 5,885, 687 out of 13,231,807 registered electricity customers in the country, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has revealed.

As at January 2024, all the 12 electricity distribution firms in the country metered only 42,961 customers, standing 1.54percent of 13.2million registered electricity customers.

Data obtained from NERC showed that Ibadan Disco has the highest number of metered customers – 1,054,740 representing 43.53percent of its 2,423,454 registered customers; followed by Ikeja Disco which has metered 902,288 customers representing 72.64percent of its 1,242,125 registered customers.

Aba Power has the lowest number of metered customers – 56,512 representing 29.40percent of its 192,216 registered customers; followed by Yola Disco which has metered only 126, 489 customers representing 15.5percent of its 814,653 registered customers.

According to NERC, 98,502 complaints from electricity customers bothering on metering, billing, service interruption, load shedding, disconnection, voltage, etc were received in January 2024 alone.

Customers of Ibadan and Eko Discos had the highest numbers of complaints 16,382 and 10,641 respectively; while Benin and Yola Discos had the lowest number of complaints from customers, nine and 568 respectively.

Meanwhile, 63.03 percent of the 98,502 complaints received from customers across the 12 discos in the country bothered on metering.