Electricity is one very important utility which many Nigerians would not want to lack and they are willing to pay for it if only it can be made available always for them. As at this year, the power company in Nigeria is not yet producing up to a quarter of Nigeria’s demand for electricity and yet the tariff has been gradually rising for many years due to the falling value of the Naira.
How much do Nigerians really pay for electricity? What is the electricity tariff?
Well, one thing I noticed is that the tariff is not the same for different type of users as it depends on whether it is for residential, industrial, public service or commercial purposes. Location may also matter as the tariff differs from region to region depending on the Power company that is in charge of forwarding bills to users.
A unit of electricity in Nigeria is measured in kiloWatt-Hours expressed as kWh and based on my bill, I pay about N25 per kWh of electricity. I was able to calculate my bill after deducing a 5% tax on the money I pay and dividing the balance by the number of units I was given
Also, I’ve found out that the tariff ranges from as low as N20.26 to as high as N28 per kWh depending on the type of customer receiving the service.
In the past, there used to be a fixed monthly charge which was billed to users irrespective of whether they consume electricity or not but that has since been scrapped since it was seen as an unjust form of billing.
Some electricity customers in Nigeria are still billed using a post paid form of estimated billing that is considered to be unfair while others are billed based on a new prepaid system that many Nigerians would rather opt for.
So, the tariff on electricity in Nigeria is not exactly fixed at a price but on a range of prices depending on what type of user the power company considers the customer to be.
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