The story of electricity in Nigeria is usually told in the language of shortages. We speak of megawatts generated, transmission constraints, tariff disputes, and periodic grid collapses. We analyse regulatory reforms and debate subsidies and gas supply. Yet this familiar conversation misses one of the most consequential developments in modern Nigeria: the emergence of a vast, largely invisible electricity system operating beyond the formal state.
For millions of Nigerians, the national grid is not just an unreliable utility; but almost an ir
