{"id":355648,"date":"2026-05-27T03:07:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=355648"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:35:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:35:03","slug":"energy-theft-obsolete-infrastructure-deepen-nigerias-electricity-crisis-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=355648","title":{"rendered":"Energy Theft, Obsolete Infrastructure Deepen Nigeria\u2019s Electricity Crisis\u00a0&#8211; Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\">The President, Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Mr Kunle Olubiyo, says Nigeria\u2019s electricity sector continues to suffer massive revenue losses due to widespread energy theft and obsolete metering systems.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>Olubiyo, said this in an interview with Newsmen to Monday in Abuja.<\/p>\n<p>He said energy theft occurs at both the consumer and institutional levels across the electricity value chain from generation to transmission and distribution.<\/p>\n<p>According to Olubiyo, at the consumer level electricity theft includes metre bypass, illegal connections and unauthorised access to power without proper billing.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, some customers would dig underground cables directly to their homes or businesses without being metered, while others exploit estimated billing systems to consume electricity without payment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether through metre bypass or illegal connection, many customers are using electricity for free. That is energy theft,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also alleged that institutional energy theft exists within the power sector, particularly through defective, obsolete, or wrongly installed metres used in monitoring electricity generation and distribution.<\/p>\n<p>He said that wholesale metres installed at critical interfaces among generation companies (GenCos), transmission companies, and distribution companies (DisCos) were often out-dated or improperly configured.<\/p>\n<p>He said those could lead to inaccurate readings and inflated subsidy claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf 4,000 megawatts is generated and 7,000 megawatts is recorded, that is energy theft because the excess energy does not get to consumers,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>The expert further said\u00a0 some operators in the sector allegedly exploit maintenance and repair contracts through inflated contract sums and possible collaboration with vandals.<\/p>\n<p>He also cited the deployment of secure pole-mounted metres in military barracks as an example of how technology can curb metre tampering and unauthorised access.<\/p>\n<p>He, therefore said the sector had to urgently address infrastructure decay, weak regulation, poor investment, and corruption within the value chain.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, according to him, Nigeria\u2019s electricity industry will continue to face liquidity challenges, revenue losses and unstable power supply.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The President, Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Mr Kunle Olubiyo, says Nigeria\u2019s electricity sector continues to suffer massive revenue losses due to widespread energy theft and obsolete metering systems. Olubiyo, said this in an interview with Newsmen to Monday in Abuja. He said energy theft occurs at both the consumer and institutional levels across the electricity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67315,"featured_media":355694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/67315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355706,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355648\/revisions\/355706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/355694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=355648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=355648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}