Nigeria beats Congo to become country with worst access to electricity globally

The World Bank has revealed that Nigeria has become the country with the worst access to electricity.

This was made known during a virtual meeting with journalists on Abuja on the Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP).

According to World Bank, 25 per cent of Nigeria's population lack access to electricity, adding that over 200 million Nigerians with access to electricity battles unreliable power supply and widespread blackout for several decades.

“Nigeria now has the largest number of unelectrified people globally, and the trend is worsening; of the electrified, the supply is very unreliable with widespread blackouts.

“Nigeria now has 25 per cent more unelectrified people than the second most unelectrified country (DRC – in absolute terms). For the bottom, 40 per cent of the population (mostly rural), access to grid electricity is even lower at about 31 per cent nationwide. Regionally, only South-West has access of over 50 per cent (except Kano),” it said.

Ashish Khanna, the WBG Practice Manager, West and Central Africa Energy, stated that, “The power sector is operationally inefficient with unreliable supply exacerbated by high losses and lack of payment discipline.

He added, “Businesses in Nigeria lose about $29 billion annually because of unreliable electricity while Nigerian utilities get paid for only a half of electricity they receive”.

Due to the poor availability of power in Nigeria 40 per cent of the population have to rely on other means of power supply.

However, the PRSP in an attempt to help resolve the power challenge in the country, revealed that $1.25 billion was approved by the board between June 2020 and February 2021 to reset the power sector.