
The registered energy customer population in Nigeria has declined from 12.78 million to 12.64 million. This is retrogressive and surprising given the clamour of many electricity users for prepaid meters as a result of high estimated bills given by many distributions companies (DisCos) in Nigeria to them. The latest data published by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) stated that there were 12,643,630 registered energy customer population in Nigeria. It added that out of this number, there were 4,898,721 metered customers as of June 30, 2022, with a metering performance of 38.74 per cent. NERC’s data for September 2021 had stated that the registered energy customer population stood at 12.78 million, of which only 4.77million (37.3% of the identified customers) were metered, leaving the unmetered population at 8.01million customers (62.7% of the registered customers). It was gathered that the decline in registered energy customers was a result of damaged meters as well as challenges of power transmission and distribution issues said to be recorded at the point of data collection. The data also revealed that distribution companies (DisCos) in Ibadan, Ikeja, and Abuja recorded the highest number of metered customers as of June 30, 2022. According to the report, Ibadan Dis- Co recorded 828,061 metered customers with a 38.67 per cent performance, followed by the Abuja DisCo, which recorded 710,870 metered customers with a 61 per cent performance and the Ikeja DisCo which has 686,705 metered customers with a 52.89 per cent performance. The NERC report also posited that since the updated Meter Asset Provider (MAP) and the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) regulations of 2021, there had been a sustained improvement in the deployment of end-use customer meters. According to it, the measure has improved transparency in customer-DisCo relations. It said: “On a DisCo-by-DisCo basis, Abuja, Eko, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, and Yola DisCos recorded increments of 31.96 per cent, 98.28 per cent, 62.91 per cent, 40.01 per cent 154.75 per cent, 157.65 per cent, 8.72 per cent and 100 per cent from the numbers of customers metered as of Q1’22.” NERC said it was actively engaged with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), World Bank, and other relevant stakeholders to accelerate the financial close and funds disbursement for the next round of the NMMP.