The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has condemned what it terms an outrageous statement credited to the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, claiming that 150 million Nigerians now enjoy “adequate electricity” with 5,500MW.
President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, condemned the statement in a release on Wednesday, saying this wild assertion is not only pretentious, it is a bad joke on a people daily confronted by grinding darkness, outrageous electricity tariffs, and a power sector manipulated for private profit at the expense of national progress.
According to the NLC President, for the minister to suggest that over 150 million Nigerians have access to reliable power in a country that struggles to generate a meagre and inconsistent 5,000 megawatts—far below the global benchmark of 1,000MW per one million people—is to insult the intelligence and lived realities of Nigerians.
He said by that standard, Nigeria should be generating no less than 150,000MW to justify such a claim. Yet, even on its best day, the country’s electricity generation has never exceeded 5,500MW—and that figure remains unstable and unreliable.
NLC went on to say, “We want to ask, is Nigeria’s standard different from world standard? Where are the power plants that make this level of supply possible? Where is the upgraded transmission infrastructure to support such output?
“Why are our homes still shrouded in darkness and our factories shutting down daily? This is not how performance is measured but could be likened to a joke carried too far. The truth is that millions of Nigerians, from urban slums to rural communities, continue to live without access to electricity.
“The few who have access do so under constant threat of disconnection, blackouts, and financial exploitation through a complex pyramid of inflated tariffs.
“The crisis we face today is the direct result of the grand betrayal that was the 2013 power sector privatisation—an exercise that handed over the nation’s critical infrastructure to cronies for just N400 billion. Over a decade later, there has been no improvement in service delivery. Yet, these same GenCos and DISCOs, which have failed the nation woefully, are to receive over N4 trillion in public subsidies with zero accountability.”