The Fraud Called ‘Band A’ Electricity Tariff

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

No matter how anyone tries to rationalise the obtuse economic reforms of the Tinubu administration, the most searing no confidence vote in their sustainability has been passed by the president himself when the presidency announced that it was no longer sustainable for the Aso Rock Villa to continue paying the yearly N47 billion ‘Band A’ electricity tariff.

Aso Rock’s move which jolted many is coming on the heels of increasingly unreliable public power supply, even as the cost soars for both households and government institutions.

In 2024, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company which said the Presidential Villa owed a bill of N923.87 million issued a 10-day notice to Nigeria’s seat of government and 86 MDAs to pay the combined debt of N47.1 billion or risk disconnection, hence the presidency’s bid to opt out of the national grid.

This seismic, albeit shameless shift, an abdication of responsibility that only a Tinubu-led government can conjure without batting an eye was announced when the Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mustapha Abdullahi, defended the Federal Government’s decision to install a N10 billion solar power grid at the presidential villa to serve the president’s residence, administrative buildings, and other essential facilities within the Aso Rock complex.

Abdullahi said President Tinubu approved the solar power grid as part of efforts to reduce the cost of governance and promote cleaner, more sustainable energy use.

“It is unsustainable for the Aso Rock Villa to continue paying about N47 billion yearly in power bills. This is why Mr. President approved the deployment of a solar power grid within the Villa… This initiative will not only ensure uninterrupted and clean energy supply to the seat of power but will also stimulate job creation and foster innovation among Nigerian engineers and energy experts,” he said.

He may well say that to the marines. As The Punch newspaper noted in its April 28, 2025 editorial, the decision more than anything else, is the clearest admission so far by the Tinubu government that Nigeria’s power sector is in ruins. Worse still, it advertises the fact that the leaders are more interested in insulating themselves from the consequences of the ruins than fixing it.

Yet, some of the administration’s vuvuzelas, adept at gaslighting fellow citizens, amplified the senseless rhetoric. Shortly after Abdullahi’s disclosure, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s media adviser, said the move was in tandem with global best practices in sustainable energy use for government facilities.

Citing the U.S., Onanuga wrote: “The White House in Washington D.C. uses solar power,” in what amounted to comparing apples and oranges even as he failed to address public concerns about the cost of the project at a time Nigeria is facing, perhaps, its worst economic woes.

But such a needless parallel stretches the limits of falsehood because it goes without saying that while the adoption of renewable energy by the U.S. at the White House is driven by environmental consciousness, the Nigerian equivalence is informed by the collapse of the country’s energy system and, therefore, Aso Rock’s decision to port to solar rather than addressing the country’s existential power crisis holistically smacks of abdication of responsibility.

The only truth in what the government said is the unsustainability of the unconscionable electricity tariff hike. It is as unsustainable for Aso Rock as it is for ordinary Nigerians. Besides, if Tinubu, the country’s number one citizen, has decided to abandon the electricity grid to generate his own electricity for Aso Rock, what then is the fate of Nigerians?

Of course, what Aso Rock disingenuously refused to admit is that the country’s seat of power is tactically extricating itself from the outrageous electricity tariff it whimsically imposed on Nigerians by classifying consumers into different bands with ‘Band A’ representing the highest level.

Since the classification, electricity costs have continued to soar, especially for ‘Band A’ consumers. In April 2024, tariffs for Band A consumers surged from N68/kWh to N225/kWh, representing an increase of over 230 per cent. Although this was later adjusted to N206.8/kWh and then slightly to N209.5/kWh in July, it remains the highest energy cost brackets in the country. With that institutions such as State Houses, which fall within ‘Band A’ have seen their electricity bills increase dramatically.

Before the classification, N100,000 fetches 1,488.8Kwh of electricity. With the classification, the same N100,000 can only purchase 443.8Kwh for ‘Band A’ customers. The implication is that even for a family in a two-bedroom apartment with the most basic household appliances, that can hardly last for two weeks. So, on the average, families paying the ‘Band A’ tariff spend at least N200,000 on electricity every month. For most people, that is unsustainable.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, said the rational for the new tariff regime was to ensure the efficient and sustainable operation of the power sector, particularly for DisCos serving areas with higher levels of electricity supply. Efficient and sustainable operation will mean recovering adequate revenue to cover investments, operational costs, and providing a reasonable return on investments, as well as improving the quality of service. The higher tariff, NERC further claimed, was also intended to encourage investment in the power sector and address issues like dip in generation.

None of these has happened. There is no improvement in the quality of service and the promise that customers can expect more reliable and consistent electricity supply has been observed in the breach. The higher tariffs, which the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, claimed would make investments in the power sector more attractive to private investors, has not achieved that.

Instead, it has achieved quite the opposite with those who have the capacity abandoning the national grid and opting for alternative power supply. Instead of the Eldorado the government promised, the high tariffs have significantly increased the cost of manufacturing in Nigeria, so much so that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, is lamenting that manufacturers spent N1.11 trillion on alternative energy in 2024, a 42 per cent increase from the previous year.

The report, titled “MAN Economic Review for the Second Half of 2024,” showed that energy-related costs rose by 42.3 per cent from the N781.68 billion recorded in 2023. The report added that soaring energy costs, inflationary pressures, and exchange rate volatility contributed to surging production costs, scaling back of investments by manufacturers and low consumer demand. All these hindrances, consequences of Tinubu’s fabled reforms, impeded industrial growth and productivity.

Recently, StatiSense, an AI data company, said Tinubu’s economic reforms that include hikes in electricity tariffs have wiped away 48.3 per cent of Nigeria’s economy in just two years. According to the report, Nigeria’s GDP in 2023, before the present administration came to power, was $363.82 billion, but in 2025, it has declined to $188.27 billion. Even the World Bank, which is always at the forefront of defending Tinubu’s crippling reforms, was honest this time to predict that more Nigerians will become poor by 2027.

Last month, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Obafemi Hamzat, lamented that electricity bill in his official house jumped from N2.7 million in March to N29 million in April, over 974 per cent hike, calling it, like Aso Rock did, unsustainable.

If Lagos State and Federal Government, the two richest entities in Nigeria, are not only calling the ‘Band A’ electricity bills unsustainable, but opting out of the national grid, then consider the plight of ordinary Nigerians.

Truth be told, the ‘Band A’ electricity tariff is, perhaps, the worst injustice the Tinubu government has inflicted on Nigerians. It is a fraud. In the first place, no one is getting the promised 20-hour electricity supply. Even MAN claims that the most its members got in 2024 was a daily 13.3-hour supply, an improvement from the 10.6 hours in 2023, though, but a far cry from the promised 20 hours. It is unsustainable as Tinubu himself knows and has acknowledged, hence the N10 billion solar project. For the sake of those who cannot afford such humongous solar project, the ‘Band A’ electricity fraud must stop.

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)