Author(s): ALFRED M. TIJAH & FRIDAY OKPANACHI EKPA| Volume 20 (1)Dec., 2023
Abstract
The recent power sector reforms in Nigeria occasioned the abandonment of state ownership of public utilities in favour of private ownership under state regulation. These reforms initiated by the Electric Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act, 2005 (now repealed and replaced by the Electricity Act 2023) ensured that, the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), the hitherto state owned public utility company with monopoly over electricity generation, transmission and distribution throughout Nigeria had its undertaking transferred to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), and subsequently unbundled into eighteen (18) successor companies out of which seventeen (17) were privatised and one commercialised thereby handing over the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry to private hands. This article employed doctrinal research methodology in examining the status of the successor companies, and found that the nature of the successor companies upon the backdrop of the privatised power sector and the development of a competitive electricity market became mystified with the courts rendering conflicting decisions on the issue. On the one hand, the nature of the successor companies were construed to be privately owned public utilities with obligatory duties to serve the public; conversely other decisions of court considered the successor companies as simply private in character with freedom to contract. With this precedential problem, it is recommended that the apex court in Nigeria curb the situation by adopting the provider/consumer nature of the successor companies which has the propensity of expanding the scope of protection for electricity consumers.
KEYWORDS: Electricity, Consumer Protection, Freedom of Contract, Privity of Contract, Power Sector.