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The President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero
The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, has strongly criticised Nigeria’s power sector policies, citing inefficiency and neglect of local content development as key issues.
Ajaero expressed his concerns during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, which aired on Thursday.
He highlighted the inadequacy of the current 5,000-megawatt power generation target for a country with over 200 million people.
“How can you have 200 million people, and someone is giving us 5,000 megawatts? Nigeria remains one of the countries suffering from power poverty. We need to sit down and work.
“Look at local content—wires, meters—everything we can produce locally. We are far behind in power generation, transmission, and distribution,” Ajaero said.
He also criticised the lack of attention to local content development, particularly in the production of cables and prepaid meters.
“As of today, Nigerians shouldn’t be importing cables. I’m not sure the ones they want to import are any better than what can be produced locally. We shouldn’t be importing prepaid meters either, as some Nigerians are already producing them,” he noted.
Addressing the 2025 budget and other pressing issues, Ajaero criticised the government’s allocation of funds to sensitise citizens to pay electricity bills, questioning why such provisions exist for a privatised sector.
“What is the point of including in the 2025 budget provisions to sensitise people to pay bills to Discos owned by private individuals? That money could be redirected to other areas of need,” he argued.
Ajaero also raised concerns about the financial challenges facing the Transmission Company of Nigeria, revealing that contractors supplying equipment are owed over ₦200bn.
“A year after privatisation, the government gradually stopped budgetary allocations to the power sector. This was a wrong move. The funds being used for sensitisation could have been invested elsewhere,” he added.
He condemned the distribution companies’ (Discos) revenue collection practices, pointing out their failure to pay for power supplied by TCN.
“As of today, the Distribution Company of Nigeria owes the Transmission Company of Nigeria over ₦400bn. The ministry isn’t fulfilling its oversight functions. If they did, the system would work, and the money would be generated,” Ajaero said.
On tariff structuring, Ajaero described it as deceptive and inequitable, calling for a service-reflective tariff instead of a cost-reflective one.
“You can’t just wake up one day and decide people must pay ₦20,000 or ₦30,000. If you don’t supply power, there must be consequences,” he insisted.
He also criticised the concept of tariff bands as discriminatory and exploitative.
“Now the Minister is talking about migrating from band A to band B. This is the height of deception. Who determines band A or band B? Is it based on geographical location?” he asked.
Ajaero stressed the need for rural electrification and renewable energy development, urging the government to bridge the power supply gap between urban and rural areas.
“Isn’t it part of their job to explore renewable energy options and assist rural communities? We need to address this,” he said.
He also called for investment in modern technologies to monitor power lines and curb vandalism.
“Even if it means policing the lines, there are modern technologies to detect when lines are tampered with. Why aren’t we using them?” he asked.
