At about 5 p.m. on a sunny day in February, a small fire flickered behind a restaurant owned by Lateefat Olofin, 55. She moved briskly between tables set up outside, serving customers sitting in the open because of the heat inside the restaurant. Mrs Olofin’s customers needed chilled drinks to accompany their meals as the temperature was above 30 degrees Celsius.
She told PREMIUM TIMES that Ketu-Epe, a suburban community in Lagos State, has been in darkness since September 2025, when vandals cut high-tension cables serving her community and nearby neighbourhoods. To keep her business running, she frequently travels to Ikorodu or Shagamu in Ogun State to buy ice blocks for her meat and drinks.
|
|
“Every day, we spend about N2,000 on ice blocks. I sell bush meat, and because there’s no electricity, I can’t buy meat in the afternoon. We are in Lagos, but we don’t enjoy this area at all,” she told PREMIUM TIMES.
‘’Electricity bills add insult to injury. In September, they charged me N10,000. Since December and January, they have not brought a proper bill. If they bring a bill now without giving us light, that is cheating. We open every day, Monday to Saturday. If we have more meat, I travel to Ogun State to buy ice for N4,000, and the bike transport costs N2,000. That’s almost every day. It’s very bad.”
|
|
|
|---|
Mrs Olofin also uses a generator to power her shop, particularly her electrical appliances, adding to her operational cost.
“Every day we buy petrol — about N4,000 — and it doesn’t last up to two hours. In total, we spend almost N10,000 daily. From Monday to Saturday, that is about N60,000. The government should help us. Since last year, they said they would fix the wires, but nothing has been done.”
Across Ketu-Epe and Ibeju-Lekki, countless women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face the same struggle since vandals cut the high-tension cables serving the communities. Many medium-scale businesses are forced to rely on expensive alternatives.
For women like Mrs Olofin, the struggle is daily and relentless. Women-owned SMEs are the backbone of Nigeria’s informal and microeconomic sectors. Many women operate in food processing, food vending, tailoring, beauty services, retail, and increasingly, small-scale manufacturing.
However, unreliable electricity remains one of the biggest barriers to their growth. PREMIUM TIMES observed that many areas in Lagos, including Epe, Ibeju Lekki, Ajah, and Lagos Island, have been experiencing outages, voltage fluctuations, and the high cost of backup power, forcing business owners to divert profits to keep their lights—and livelihoods—on.
Tosin Sangosanya, a shop owner, said the lack of electricity has drastically affected her business.
“We sell drinks and bottled water. Customers expect cold drinks, but without electricity, we have to buy ice blocks from Ikorodu or Shagamu. Each ice block costs between N2,000 and N2,500, and it barely lasts a day,” she told PREMIUM TIMES. “We mostly sell just to keep customers from going elsewhere. Some shops have installed solar systems, but we haven’t been able to afford that.”
Before the cables were stolen, Mrs Sangosanya paid about N10,000 per month for electricity. Now, she spends more than N25,000 a month on ice alone. Generators help only partially; they cannot keep drinks cold throughout the day, and fuel costs rise steadily.
Another resident, Tunde Adesina, expressed frustration with the situation.
“Everything has gone bad. Many people are turning to solar or buying petrol—around N10,000 a day—just to survive. We are in Lagos State, and the only thing missing is electricity.”
The Director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, Sam Amadi, who is a policy strategist and law and governance expert, told PREMIUM TIMES during a phone interview in February that the electricity liability is often caused by infrastructure design and network capacity.
“In densely populated areas where facilities have not been upgraded, reliability suffers,’’ he said.
He explained that energy represents roughly 30 per cent of production costs for many SMEs.
“It is significantly more expensive to run on generators than on the grid. When businesses depend on fuel daily, profit margins shrink, and so they may not survive,’’ he added.
Recurrent decimal
Community leaders say the problem is a recurring one.
The Oluwo of Ketu-Epe, Mutiu Olokodana, said the community first recorded cable theft in early 2025. Despite arrests and local interventions, theft returned in September 2025, leaving streets dark.
“We had lights after the first cut, but when they stole the wires again, everything went dark. One suspect was caught but eventually released. People have to buy fuel to run generators. It’s very hard for the community,” Mr Olokodana said.
Residents in the community similarly told PREMIUM TIMES that the suspect was released by the police because nothing was found on him.
They said the stolen cable is at the police station, but has not been reconnected. They explained that officials from the Epe local government secretariat had visited the community regarding the theft, but no steps have been taken to repair the cable.
However, there are no regulations or extant laws setting a timeframe for the distribution company to restore power when a cable is vandalised.
Mr Olokodana told this newspaper that repeated assurances from local government officials, including promises that power would return by 25 December 2025, were unfulfilled.
“The chairman always promises… but nothing happens. The wire is at the station. Until it is reinstalled, there will be no light,” Mr Olokodana lamented.
Efforts to reach the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) were unsuccessful. Spokesperson Kingsley Okotie did not respond to calls, texts, or WhatsApp messages regarding the community’s plights.
How vandalism, theft and energy insecurity affected Nigeria
The electricity challenge bedevilling Ketu-Epe also occurs in other communities in Nigeria, where regulatory gaps, funding bottlenecks, and enforcement issues leave them vulnerable.
The General Manager of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), in Benin, Charles Iwuamadi, explained that vandalism of transmission lines has risen more than 30 per cent in recent years despite efforts of different levels of government to curb it.
Mr Iwuamadi explained further that one of the major causes of Nigeria’s frequent national grid collapses and disruptions in electricity supply is vandalism.
He advised Nigerian communities to support and safeguard power infrastructure.
According to the World Bank’s 2020 Ease of Doing Business report, Nigeria ranked 171 out of 190 countries in terms of guaranteeing access to electricity, a persistent problem for vulnerable Nigerians.
“Improving access and reliability of power is key to reducing poverty and unlocking economic growth in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic,” says Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Country Director. “The operation will help improve the financial viability of the DISCOs and increase revenues for the whole Nigerian power sector, which is critical to save scarce fiscal resources and create jobs by increasing the productivity of private and public enterprises.”
As a result, the World Bank approved $500 million to support the government of Nigeria in improving its electricity distribution sector.
It said the project would help boost electricity access by improving the performance of the Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) through a large-scale metering programme desired by Nigerians for a long time, but the reality in 2026 has shown that the government has not yet been able to fix the sector.
In 2024, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said Nigerians spent N16.5 trillion in 2023 on diesel, petrol, and generators for their own electricity generation. This dwarfs the N1 trillion revenue earned by the formal power sector in the same year.
He spotlighted the huge gap between spending on inefficient personal power generation and the revenue of the national grid.
The frequent lack of power to do business for SMEs is a major hindrance to Nigeria’s economic growth, thereby costing the country an enormous amount of money. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that a lack of access to reliable electricity costs Nigeria an estimated $29 billion a year —more than federal spending on health and education combined.
The impact on SMEs
For small businesses like Mrs Olofin’s, daily disruptions translate into lost income and wasted resources. A 2020 PwC survey found electricity to be the highest operational cost for many SMEs, with one in seven forced out of business due to power constraints.
READ ALSO: DisCO vows 24-hour electricity supply after customers suspend planned protest
Successive governments have attempted to fix the system, but reforms stall. The 2013 privatisation promised efficiency, yet transmission remains underfunded, generation companies face liquidity crises, and gas suppliers demand upfront cash or divert supply abroad. Circular debt persists. Ambitious projects like the 2025 Siemens partnership, aimed at generating 25,000 megawatts, confront institutional—not technical—barriers.
Nigeria is not alone in its energy struggle, yet it lags behind in the pack. Morocco’s Noor Ouarzazate solar complex powers over a million households. Egypt added 14,000 megawatts of gas-fired capacity in six years. Ghana recovered from a 2012–2016 power crisis through transparent procurement and technical autonomy. The lesson is clear: governance, not technology alone, determines success.
Renewable energy adoption offers hope. Surveys show solar and hybrid systems improve profitability and resilience, especially for SMEs. Experts recommend policies that incentivise clean energy, support women entrepreneurs, and reduce dependence on expensive private generation.
On 28 June 2025, President Bola Tinubu signed the Electricity Amendment Bill, decentralising the sector and allowing states to generate, transmit, and distribute electricity, license private investors, and develop mini-grids. The law promises faster electrification and industrialisation, but funding and technical capacity remain concerns. The Electricity Act 2023 also introduces reforms such as separating distribution and supply, renewable energy incentives, and the Power Consumer Assistance Fund (PCAF) to enforce accountability.
Communities like Ketu-Epe, which bear the cost of darkness, face immediate challenges: lost income, stalled business growth, and diminished opportunities.
