It takes a specific brand of political audacity to stand before a nation currently grappling with a collapsing national grid and tell them that their problem isn’t a lack of supply, but a lack of “preservation culture.” Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, recently took to national television to suggest that Nigerians are wasteful with electricity because it is “cheap.” To the average Nigerian, who currently spends more on fuel for “I-pass-my-neighbor” generators than on their actual electricity bill, this statement wasn’t just out of touch; it was a masterclass in gaslighting.
The Minister’s argument rests on a shaky foundation: the comparison of Nigerian electricity tariffs with those of the developed world. However, whenever public officials embark on these international comparisons, they conveniently suffer from a selective amnesia regarding the most critical metric of all: the value of labor and the reality of the minimum wage.
To compare the cost of a kilowatt-hour (kWh) in London or New York to that in Lagos or Kano without mentioning the purchasing power of the consumer is intellectually dishonest. In the “developed world” the Minister so admires, the minimum wage allows for a standard of living where utility bills, while a concern, do not represent a choice between eating and staying illuminated.
In Nigeria, the minimum wage remains a point of bitter negotiation, hovering at a level that barely covers a bag of rice. When you adjust for inflation and the plummeted value of the Naira, Nigerian electricity isn’t “cheap”, it is an expensive luxury for a service that is rarely delivered. Telling a worker earning 30,000 or 70,000 Naira a month that they are “spoiled” by cheap power is a slap in the face of the economic hardship currently defining the Nigerian experience.
Perhaps the most frustrating element of the current administration’s power policy is the introduction of the Band A, B, C, and D system. This wasn’t a technical solution; it was the creation of a socio-economic dichotomy. It effectively turned electricity, a basic social amenity, into a tiered subscription service where the wealthy are promised “premium” darkness while the rest are relegated to the shadows.
We were told that Band A customers would enjoy 20 to 24 hours of power in exchange for a staggering tariff hike. Within months, that promise evaporated. Nigerians quickly discovered that “Band A” was often just a label used to justify higher billing without a corresponding increase in stability.
Instead of an apology for this bait-and-switch, the Minister has doubled down, moving from policy failure to consumer blame. There is a palpable arrogance in this defense mechanism; it suggests that the ministry’s inability to manage the grid is actually the fault of the person who left a lightbulb on in a one-bedroom apartment in Ibadan.
The Minister’s lecture on “preservation” is particularly galling because it assumes there is a consistent flow of power to begin with. You cannot preserve a vacuum. For the vast majority of Nigerians, the “culture” isn’t about wasting power; it’s about the frantic rush to charge phones, pump water, and do laundry in the unpredictable 45-minute window when the “NEPA” gods decide to smile upon them.
In developed nations, subsidies are not seen as “waste”; they are seen as an investment in the productivity of the citizenry. Governments understand that cheap, reliable power is the engine of small business and industrial growth. By attempting to strip away every vestige of support while the grid remains in a state of perpetual collapse, the Ministry is effectively stifling the very economic recovery the government claims to be championing.
Leadership requires a level of empathy that seems currently absent from the Ministry of Power. When a policy fails, as the Band system largely has in terms of public trust and reliability, the honorable path is to recalibrate, not to insult the intelligence of the consumer. The Minister’s tone suggests a disconnect so profound that it borders on the imperial.
Electricity is not a favor granted by the government to the governed; it is a right in any modern society aiming for development. If the current leadership views the Nigerian public as a nuisance that “wastes” cheap resources, then perhaps that leadership is ill-suited for the task at hand. Everything in Nigeria cannot be reduced to partisan politics or aggressive revenue collection. At some point, the wires have to hum with actual electricity.
Minister Adelabu should perhaps spend less time comparing Nigeria to the UK and more time ensuring that the average Nigerian can turn on a switch and see light without being insulted for the privilege. If the burden of the office and the complexities of the grid are too much to handle without resorting to blaming the victims of a broken system, then it is time to take a bow and let a more competent, empathetic professional take the lead.
Godwin Anyebe is a Journalist and a Rights Activist.
