The Federal Government, yesterday, acknowledged the existing metering gap in the country.It is set to receive the first batch of 3,205,101 electricity meters this month as part of a concerted effort to close the gap.

For over a decade, the country only provided about 5.5 million meters to consumers. The Guardian had reported that if efforts remained as it was in the previous years, even with funding from the Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), it will take more than a decade to meter the existing 7.2 million customers that are billed arbitrarily.

The number of meters being promised to be provided by the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu is about 58.25 per cent of 5,502,460 metering achieved in the last 11 years since the power sector was privatised.

This comes as the minister contradicted the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), stating that the active electricity customers of December 2024 stood at 10,114,060 and put total metered customers at 55 per cent.

According to NERC’s fourth quarter report for 2024, as of December 31, 6,288,624 (46.57 per cent) out of the 13,503,342 registered electricity customers were metered across the 12 Distribution Companies (DisCos). The unmetered customers were put at 7.2 million.

Special Adviser on Strategic Communications and Media Relations to the power minister, Adelabu Tunji, said 75,000 meters under the International Competitive Bid One (ICB1) will be delivered by April 2025, followed by a second batch of 200,000 meters in May. The deliverables, off the promised 3.2 million meters, is a meagre eight per cent.

Tunji criticised the report that the metering situation in the electricity sector was in crisis, adding that the report failed to look at the progress made in closing the gap.

“While challenges persist, the facts tell a more balanced story – one of sustained effort, financial commitment and structured implementation plans by the Federal Government to close the metering gap.

“Despite claims of stagnation, metering installations have been progressing steadily. As of December 2024, a total of 5,502,460 customers had been metered, representing about 55 per cent of the 10,114,060 active electricity customers in Nigeria.’’

In 2024 alone, 572,050 meters were installed,” he said. In parallel, the Presidential Metering Initiative (PMI) backed by N700 billion secured through the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) will further strengthen the national metering rollout. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has been set up to oversee implementation, with a target of deploying two million meters yearly over the next five years. The tender for the first batch is scheduled for the third quarter of 2025.