President of the Nigeria Labour Congress and General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees, Joe Ajaero, has described Nigeria’s power sector as “the biggest scam in the country,” blaming decades of failed reforms, weak planning and profit-driven privatisation for the persistent electricity crisis.
Speaking in an interview, Ajaero said the challenges facing the sector cannot be blamed solely on generation, transmission or distribution, insisting that all three segments are deeply interconnected.
According to him, a failure in one part of the value chain automatically affects the others, making stable electricity supply impossible.
“If you generate 10,000 megawatts and transmission capacity is 5,000 megawatts, it is not guaranteed that you will even wheel 5,000 megawatts,” he said.
He explained that even where generation capacity exists, weak transmission and distribution infrastructure often prevent electricity from reaching consumers effectively.
Ajaero also argued that the sector lacks a coordinated long-term master plan, noting that most stakeholders are primarily focused on profit rather than sustainable development.
“The stakeholders are investors whose motive is simply to make money. Until the stakeholders sit together and plan for the future, the problem will remain,” he stated.
Questioning the objectives behind the privatisation of the sector, the labour leader said the process was never genuinely designed to improve electricity supply for Nigerians.
“Was privatisation meant to improve electricity supply? It is important that we realise this. Privatisation was never meant to improve power supply,” Ajaero said.
Nigeria’s power sector has continued to face widespread criticism more than a decade after the unbundling and privatisation of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, with millions of households and businesses still struggling with poor electricity supply, rising tariffs and deteriorating infrastructure.