Nigeria’s unmetered electricity customers decreased to 5.83m in 2023 – NBS

• The figure represents a 3.34 per cent decrease compared to Q3 last year

Unmetered electricity customers in the Nigerian electricity supply industry, NESI, decreased to 5.83 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 from 6 million in Q3.

The National Bureau of Statistics disclosed this in its latest electricity report for Q4 2023.

The figure represents a 3.34 per cent decrease compared to Q3 last year.

The report stated that metered customers stood at 5.61 million in Q4 2023, indicating a decrease in the growth rate of 1.32 per cent from 5.68 million recorded in the preceding quarter.

Meanwhile, the combined figure for unmetered and metered electricity customers showed that the country has 12.12 million power users.

Although the country’s electricity customers rose by 3.46 per cent in the period under review, the challenge of closing the metering gap still needed to be addressed.

The development comes amid the recent hike in electricity tariff.

Recall that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, last Tuesday increased the electricity tariffs of customers under the Band A category to N225 per kilowatt-hour from N66/kWh.