Why it’s too early to amend 2023 Electricity Act

A former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi, has warned against amending the 2023 Electricity Act, emphasising that Nigeria’s power sector reforms should be allowed to mature before modifications are allowed to be made to them.

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Mr Amadi, who is the current director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, made the disclosure on Monday at the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Association of Power Generation Companies of Nigeria (APGC) in Abuja.

“I don’t think there’s any need to amend the Electricity Act at this stage. We are too quick to tear down what we have built before giving it time to mature. Amendments should come from trial, with evidence and reviews,” he said

“Let us develop the resilience and patience to work through problems rather than constantly changing models, institutions, and laws.”

The event, themed “A Decade of Powering Progress, Driving Nigeria’s Energy Transformation,” assembled stakeholders from across the power sector to deliberate on the achievements and challenges of the industry over the past decade.

In 2023, the National Assembly endorsed a constitutional amendment giving states the freedom to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in a departure from a previous law that made such functions the preserve of the Federal Government. President Bola Tinubu approved the law in June 2023.

The Act consolidates industry laws, creating a framework to accelerate Nigeria’s power sector growth, attract private investment and expand electricity access to rural and underserved areas via conventional and renewable energy solutions.

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In July, the senate set in motion a legislative process to overhaul the act with the passing of the Electricity Act (Amendment) Bill 2025 for second reading.

The review came just as many states were beginning to set up and operationalise their electricity markets under the new decentralised framework.

The focus of the amendment bill, sponsored by Enyinnaya Abaribe, the senator representing Abia South Senatorial District, was the need to address a lingering crisis in the power sector, which requires the clarification of regulatory roles, tackling vandalism and streamlining governance across the electricity value chain.

Mr Abaribe asserted the proposed amendment was a response to the challenges that emerged in the wake of the devolution of generation, distribution and transmission functions to states.

Several lawmakers backed the change and demanded more stringent punitive measures to curb electricity theft and sabotage.

Mr Amadi stressed that the power sector’s challenges should be resolved through gradual revisions, rather than wholesale changes, adding that some provisions of the current law haven’t been implemented.

“We should accept that building this electricity market will be a trial-and-error process. We should not be too inoculated around failure. Once we start an experiment, we try to go back again, back and forth. If there’s trouble, we should think about revision, not destruction and reconstruction,” he said.

According to him, the Nigerian electricity sector is overly politicised, leading to knee-jerk reactions that often worsen current problems instead fixing them.