Energy theft is the silent cancer eating Nigeria’s power sector alive.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) estimates that aggregate technical, commercial and collection (ATC&C) losses across the eleven distribution companies hover between 40–55 %.
In plain language: for every 100 kWh of electricity that leaves a power plant, fewer than 60 kWh are paid for.
The rest is stolen, bypassed, or simply not billed.
I have spent the last ten years fighting this war on the ground — first as Engineering Manager at Enugu DisCo, then as Head of Revenue Protection at Port Harcourt DisCo, and most dramatically as the pioneer Chief Operations Officer of Aba Power, where we reduced commercial losses from 65 % to under 35 % in twelve months.
At AEDC today, we have driven monthly collections from N16 billion to over N30 billion in less than a year. These are not theoretical victories; they are the result of deliberate, replicable anti-theft campaigns.
Energy theft in Nigeria is not a moral failing of the poor. It is a systemic failure that can be dismantled with the right mix of technology, enforcement, political will and community engagement.
Understand the typology of theft
From my field experience, theft falls into four broad categories:
- Meter bypass, Meter Tampering and illegal connections (the most common)
- Collusion between customers and utility staff
- Vandalism of distribution infrastructure for sale of copper and aluminium
- Fraudulent load declarations (Diversion) by large industrial customers
Each requires a different countermeasure.
The system and technology that actually works
The single most effective weapon we have deployed is Comprehensive Smart Metering with remote disconnect capability.
When a meter detects tampering, the system flags it in real time, sends a photograph of the tamper event, and disconnects the customer automatically. In an era of Meter scarcity, we involved vendor-financed model that cost the DisCo nothing upfront. The result? Metering Gap dropped, and Commercial losses collapsed.
In Port Harcourt, we introduced GIS mapping of the entire network and energy accounting down to the 11 kV feeder level. Suddenly we could see exactly how much energy entered a feeder and how much was paid for. The gap told us precisely where the thieves were. Targeted raids on those feeders recovered over N1 billion in five months.
Enforcement must be surgical, not scattergun
Mass disconnection is politically tempting but counterproductive. It alienates honest customers and fuels public resentment. Instead, we used data analytics to identify the worst 500 offenders in every business unit — often high-profile individuals and businesses — and disconnected them publicly.
The psychological impact was immediate. Neighbours who saw a hotel or factory in darkness for three weeks suddenly became willing to pay.
We also created joint task forces with the Nigeria Police and local vigilantes, but with strict rules of engagement: no extortion, no harassment of the poor, only evidence-based action.
In Aba, we recovered over 1,200 illegally connected premises in the first six months without a single reported case of brutality.
Turn communities into stakeholders
A breakthrough moment in a Disco came when we started engaging community youths to protect transformers and report illegal connections.
Theft is sometimes a community enterprise; turn the community into your partner and the game changes. We called it “Community Energy Team”. Within weeks, reports of vandalism dropped by over 60 %.
Prosecute the big fish — relentlessly
Small-scale by-passers are symptoms. The real disease is the large customers — factories, hotels, government offices — who are involved in massive Energy Diversion. In Port Harcourt, we prosecuted a state secretariat that had bypassed its meter for years. The fine and back-billing ran into tens of millions of naira. The message travelled faster than any advertisement.
Remove the incentive for staff collusion
Staff collusion is the Achilles heel of every anti-theft programme. We tackled it in three ways: (a) rotate field staff every six months, (b) pay performance bonuses tied directly to loss reduction in their area, and (c) install dashboard cameras in all revenue protection vans.
When staff know their own colleagues are rewarded for integrity and punished for collusion, behaviour changes overnight.
The role of government and regulators
No DisCo can win this war alone. Government must criminalise energy theft explicitly (not just civil fines) and establish special courts for rapid prosecution. The Regulators should consider setting up an Anti-Theft Funds to Incentivise Aggressive Action on Energy Theft.
The economic prize
If Nigeria reduces average ATC&C losses from 45 % to 20% — a target a few Discos meet inconsistently — the sector will unlock an additional ₦1– 1.5 trillion in annual revenue without generating a single extra megawatt. That is enough to fund 10,000 MW of new power plants, meter every home, and still deliver lower tariffs for honest consumers.
Energy theft is not inevitable. It is a choice we have made for too long. We proved that with political cover, good data, smart technology and courageous leadership, it can be defeated in months, not decades.
The light is not coming because of new power plants alone. The light will come when we stop stealing it from one another.
- Canice Emeka is a highly experienced power systems expert whose career in Nigeria’s electricity distribution landscape has earned him recognition as one of the most grounded operational strategists in the sector.
