Nigeria’s eleven electricity distribution companies lost N159.37 billion in unbilled and uncollected revenue in the first three months of 2026, according to monthly performance data published by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, a figure that lays bare the widening commercial dysfunction at the foundation of the country’s power sector.
The losses, calculated as the gap between energy received by the DisCos and revenue they actually collected, unfolded across January, February and March.
Total energy received in January was N336.43 billion, against revenue collected of N204.74 billion, a shortfall of N131.69 billion in a single month.
In February, the gap narrowed slightly to N80.41 billion, and in March it widened again, with N196.13 billion collected against N293.76 billion of energy received, leaving another N97.63 billion on the table.
Across the quarter, the DisCos collectively received N907.28 billion worth of electricity and recovered N597.55 billion, a system-wide recovery rate that averaged just 65.9 percent, meaning more than one-third of every kilowatt-hour that entered the distribution network generated no cash.
“These numbers are not a surprise; they are a confirmation,” said a Lagos-based power sector consultant who has advised two state governments on electricity privatisation. “The DisCos were never properly capitalised after the 2013 privatisation. They inherited a metering gap of millions of customers and they have never closed it. If you cannot meter, you cannot bill. If you cannot bill, you cannot collect. It is that simple.”
The NERC data, broken down by DisCo, reveals significant performance disparities that regulators have struggled to address through tariff reviews and compliance notices alone.
Kaduna DisCo recorded the worst recovery efficiency of the quarter, posting 36.29 percent in January, 41.20 percent in February and 35.65 percent in March, each figure coloured red in NERC’s own traffic-light classification, which flags any rate below 50 percent as critically underperforming. Jos DisCo was not far behind, with recovery rates of 43.54 percent, 66.29 percent and 53.53 percent over the same period.
At the other end of the table, Eko DisCo, which serves parts of Lagos, recorded a recovery efficiency of 87.92 percent in January, 100.67 percent in February and 95.73 percent in March, making it the only distributor to consistently breach the 80 percent green threshold NERC uses as its minimum acceptable benchmark. Ikeja DisCo, which covers the commercial heart of Lagos, also posted strong numbers, reaching 99.30 percent in March.
The contrast between the Lagos operators and their counterparts in the north has become one of the defining fault lines of Nigeria’s electricity reform story.
Customer density, commercial activity and the concentration of metered industrial consumers give Lagos DisCos a structural advantage that regulators acknowledge but have not yet translated into redistributive policy.
“You have two completely different economies inside the same regulatory framework,” said a former NERC commissioner, speaking privately. “Eko and Ikeja operate in environments where customers have businesses that depend on electricity and will pay for it. In Kaduna or Jos, the payment culture is different, infrastructure losses are higher and the political will to disconnect non-payers is weaker. Regulating them with the same tariff structure is a fundamental design problem.”
The aggregate billing efficiency numbers also deteriorated over the quarter, falling from 79.72 percent in January to 83.89 percent in March, an improvement on paper, but one driven partly by a sharp drop in total energy received in February, when NERC recorded a 17.64 percent decline in power supplied to the distribution network, likely reflecting generation and transmission constraints upstream.
NERC noted in the factsheets that target ATC&C, aggregate technical, commercial and collection, losses for DisCos were reviewed effective January 2026, a reset that adjusts the performance benchmarks against which distribution companies are measured and compensated. Critics argue such reviews risk institutionalising underperformance rather than eliminating it.
The DisCos had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
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