Nigeria’s electricity sector recorded a revenue shortfall of about N1.36tn in 2025, as power distribution companies failed to bill customers for electricity worth N694.8bn and were unable to collect a further N669.5bn from bills issued, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The figures, contained in NERC’s 2025 Annual Report, showed that the 11 DisCos supplied electricity valued at N3.68tn during the year but billed customers only N2.99tn, resulting in a gross billing efficiency of 81.14 per cent.
The report showed that electricity worth about N694.8bn supplied to consumers was not billed. Of the N2.99tn billed by the DisCos, only N2.32tn was collected, leaving an outstanding balance of N669.49bn.
As a result, the combined billing and collection gap stood at about N1.36tn.
NERC stated, “The total billing to electricity consumers by the DisCos was N2.99tn, but only N2.32tn was collected, translating to a collection efficiency of 77.60 per cent.”
The commission also reported that the DisCos received 31,251.77 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity at their trading points but billed customers for only 25,867.86GWh, resulting in an energy accounting efficiency of 82.77 per cent.
Ibadan DisCo recorded the highest energy accounting efficiency at 88.84 per cent, while Enugu DisCo had the lowest at 72.18 per cent.
The sector’s commercial losses have attracted criticism from former senator and businessman Ben Murray-Bruce, who said Nigeria’s electricity privatisation had failed to deliver the investment and reliability promised to Nigerians.
In an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, Murray-Bruce said Nigeria must stop pretending that the existing electricity model is working.
He wrote, “The 2013 privatisation was not a reform. It was a transfer of custody.”
According to him, the problem was that investors acquired the electricity assets without having the financial capacity needed to rebuild, modernise and expand the infrastructure.
“The men and women who bought the GenCos and the DisCos had enough money to purchase the assets. They did not have enough money to run them. Owning a power station and capitalising a power station are two different economic acts, and we confused them,” he said.
Murray-Bruce’s comments come against the backdrop of NERC’s finding that the weighted average aggregate technical, commercial and collection losses across the DisCos stood at 37.03 per cent in 2025.
The figure comprised 18.86 per cent in technical and commercial losses and 22.40 per cent in collection losses, exceeding the 20.54 per cent target set under the 2025 Multi-Year Tariff Order by 16.49 percentage points.
The former senator said the financial weakness of the distribution companies was particularly concerning because they remained responsible for collecting electricity revenues from consumers.
He also criticised the fact that millions of active electricity customers remained unmetered, saying the situation had allowed estimated billing to persist across the sector.
“A meter is a machine that tells the truth. An estimated bill is a machine that does not. An industry that cannot generate power has discovered it can still generate revenue by billing darkness,” Murray-Bruce stated.
The regulator said the DisCos installed 972,040 meters in 2025, with Ibadan DisCo recording the highest number at 180,256, while Yola DisCo had the lowest at 14,231.
