Harrison EDEH
Federal government moved to crackdown on rising energy theft along the 132kV Ikorodu–Sagamu industrial corridor, which has led to an estimated annual revenue loss of N120 billion on the electricity market.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, announced the intervention on Friday,August 28, during a high-level stakeholder meeting with industrial operators, key market participants, and energy regulators in Lagos.
Tegbe who issued the firm directive mandated a transparent, science-based investigation into the substantial discrepancies between the volume of electricity transmitted along the axis and the energy officially billed and accounted for by distribution companies.
Notably,the Ikorodu–Sagamu corridor has become an emerging economic hub and Nigeria’s primary industrial manufacturing hubs, serving major heavy consumers.
Conversely, the enhanced visibility from technological monitoring tools deployed by the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) exposed troubling loading anomalies and severe commercial losses across the network.
Reaffirming the administration’s commitment to industrial advancement, the minister assured manufacturers of sustained power supply while maintaining that uninterrupted energy must be met with strict accountability and accurate billing.
Tegbe declared that the government will no longer tolerate meter tampering, deliberate data manipulation, or infrastructure interference, emphasizing that every consumer must remain accountable for actual power consumed.
The critical stakeholder engagement drew senior leadership across the energy value chain, including the Managing Director and Executive Directors of NISO, representatives from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), and the chief executives of both Ikeja Electric and the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company alongside corridor industrial representatives.
Stakeholders have been charged to cooperate fully with technical investigators to eliminate revenue leakages and safeguard the financial stability of the national grid.
Advocate Times reports that electricity theft and vandalism of power infrastructure have been key problems confronting the electricity sector.
More so,stealing armoured cables,transformers or copper highways substations alongside energy theft have contributed to numerous problems confronting Nigeria’s power sector.
