How state electricity regulators are reshaping Nigeria’s power sector

Three years after the Electricity Act 2023 pulled power off the exclusive legislative list and handed states the right to run their own electricity markets, the promise of “regulation at your doorstep” is being tested in real time, writes Onu Okorie

As of mid-2026, 16 states, have formally taken over regulatory oversight from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission NERC, among them include: Lagos, Enugu, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Edo, Kogi, Imo, Plateau, Niger, Abia, Nasarawa, Anambra, Bayelsa and Gombe states.
On the other hand, the Electricity Act 2023 does not compel every state to establish its own electricity regulator immediately. State regulation is an option that a state may exercise, subject to a legal process. That explains why, as of July 2026, 16 states have made the transition while the remaining 20 continue under NERC for the electricity activities that remain within federal jurisdiction. The Electricity Act 2023 gives states the power, not an absolute obligation to establish and regulate their own intrastate electricity markets. A state must first create the necessary legal and institutional framework and exercise the option through the procedure provided by the Act. Until it does so, NERC retains regulatory authority. Also the Act did not prescribe a universal deadline by which all states must take over electricity regulation.
More specifically, Section 230(8) provides that where a state has not exercised the option to take over regulation, generation, transmission, system operation and distribution in that state continue to be regulated by NERC until the state exercises the option.

Setting up own State Electricity Regulatory Commissions SERCs means they are to license operators, set tariffs and, crucially, field consumer complaints.
The question on the lips of households, market women and small manufacturers alike, particularly over the states running their regulations presently is: has moving the regulator closer actually moved the darkness further away?

This is given that the logic behind the Act was that the decentralisation would be pushing decision-making on vandalism, meter bypass and billing disputes down to a level where regulators can see, and be seen by, the people they serve.

In principle, this proximity should shorten the distance between a vandalised transformer or a bypassed meter and a regulatory response. State officials are, at least in theory, easier to reach than an Abuja-based commission juggling the whole federation. Whether that theoretical closeness has translated into faster resolution varies sharply from state to state, and depends heavily on how quickly each SERC has staffed up, published complaint channels and won public awareness.

On paper, the new state regulators inherit strong consumer-protection tools. The federal framework already obliges distribution companies DisCos to replace faulty or obsolete meters without charging customers, and in July 2026 the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission renewed that warning at a joint stakeholder meeting that explicitly brought NERC, the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency and the new SERCs to the same table, a sign that regulatory cooperation, not just duplication, is the emerging model.

Yet the scale of unresolved grievance nationally is still sobering. NERC’s own industry data shows Nigerians lodged over 700,000 complaints against DisCos in 2025 alone, with metering issues overtaking billing disputes as the single biggest source of anger, and metering, billing and service interruptions together accounting for the bulk of all complaints in some quarters.

However, that backlog predates most of the state hand-overs, and it is the inheritance every new SERC now has to work through. Early evidence suggests states with functioning complaint desks and visible enforcement, prosecutions for meter bypass, fines for illegal connections are beginning to chip away at consumer distrust, but the exploitation that drove the original outcry (estimated billing, meter-acquisition charges, prolonged service failures after vandalism) has not disappeared simply because a new signpost now points to a state office instead of NERC’s.

This is where public expectation and regulatory reality diverge most sharply. State regulators control licensing, tariffs and intrastate distribution arrangements. However, they do not control the national grid, generation capacity, or the multi-trillion-naira debt owed to power generating companies, which stood at roughly N6.8 trillion as of early 2026.

Bayelsa’s own experience is instructive: the state endured four months of darkness in 2024 after transmission towers were vandalised, a grid-level failure no state regulator, however well-run, can fix alone. Metering nationally still sits under 60 percent, meaning millions of households remain on estimated billing regardless of which regulator technically has jurisdiction.

So the honest answer, state by state, is: modest and uneven improvement in service quality and responsiveness, but no dramatic transformation of supply itself . This is because the core infrastructure bottlenecks (grid instability, generation shortfalls, vandalism of transmission assets) sit above the states’ regulatory reach.

Where supply has visibly improved, it has typically come from parallel investment such ae new mini-grids, licensed embedded generation, faster fault response — rather than from regulation alone.

Public awareness remains the weak link. NERC’s public notices have made clear that consumers in transitioned states should now direct complaints such as disputed bills, metering delays, service failures to their state regulator rather than the federal commission. But awareness campaigns have lagged the legal transitions themselves in several states, leaving many consumers still calling old NERC hotlines out of habit, or unaware a state body even exists.

States that have invested early in public sensitisation, local-language outreach and visible complaint desks report noticeably better uptake than those that changed the regulatory letterhead without changing the customer experience.

For officials now sitting as consumer protectors at the state level, the complaint volumes have been substantial from day one,which forms a reflection of years of accumulated grievance rather than new problems created by decentralisation. Coping has meant leaning on the same enforcement tools NERC used nationally: fines of between N100,000 and N300,000 for meter tampering and illegal connections, criminal prosecution for energy theft, and structured meter-replacement orders that bar DisCos from passing costs to consumers.

States that have paired enforcement with faster case turnaround and regular public reporting are building the credibility the new system depends on; those still finding their institutional feet risk consumers quietly concluding that the new regulator is no faster than the old one.

Enugu became the pathfinder, with the state’s electricity law signed in September 2023 and full regulatory handover following in October 2024. Ekiti’s State Electricity Regulatory Bureau, established in March 2024, followed the same script, while Lagos’s transition which was completed in June 2025 became something of a template, with Ikeja Electric and Eko Disco ordered to incorporate intrastate subsidiaries answerable to the new Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commissioner.
Currently, several Nigerian State Electricity Regulatory Commissions SERCs have published consumer complaint channels and are actively doing public/consumer awareness. The strongest examples are Edo, Lagos and Enugu.
Edo State Electricity Regulatory Commission EDERC for instance, launched an online complaint portal for electricity consumers in June 2024. The commission said consumers could use the portal to lodge complaints, report service problems, upload supporting documents and track the status of complaints in real time. It specifically described the initiative as a consumer-empowerment measure.
Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission also has an online portal where consumers can submit and track consumer complaints and petitions, with a dedicated consumer-affairs email.
LASERC has also been actively using public communication to educate consumers. In a recent public-awareness message, LASERC explained that consumers with billing, metering, supply or disconnection problems should first obtain a complaint/reference number from their DisCo and can then escalate unresolved matters to LASERC.
Enugu State Electricity Regulatory Commission EERC is arguably the best example if you want to demonstrate an institutionalised consumer-protection system.
The commission also publishes its customer-service and consumer-protection regulation.
More importantly, EERC is publishing actual complaint/dispute decisions. Its website currently lists 18 CCRD decisions, including a May 2026 case involving excessive electricity billing and an overcharged reconnection fee.
Also in May 2026 it issued a public notice concerning MainPower after persistent complaints from electricity consumers over reduced supply hours.
Abia State Electricity Regulatory Authority ASERA has a dedicated Complaints Desk with consumer name, account/meter number, DisCo, description and document upload.
ASERA also published a Customer Rights and Obligations document for consultation in February 2026.

Anambra State Electricity Regulatory Commission also provides Consumer Rights page, which gives a four-step complaint process: provider: ASERC, investigation and resolution.
Strong evidence of consumer education: ASERC has a dedicated Consumer Rights & Complaints section explaining billing, metering, disconnection, safety and complaint procedures.

Bayelsa State Electricity Regulatory Agency BYERA’s official app says consumers can file complaints and access consumer-rights information.
Particularly strong: app includes consumer complaints/rights and Consumer Awareness and Rights Workshops. BYERA also held a public stakeholder vetting meeting on its 2026 licensing regulations. Perhaps most interesting case in Bayelsa
BYERA is that its official mobile application says consumers can:
access consumer-rights information;
file complaints; obtain regulatory resources; receive news and announcements; and access information about Consumer Awareness and Rights Workshops. It may be the most innovative newer regulator from a consumer-awareness standpoint.
That is arguably more proactive than simply publishing an email address.

Ekiti State Electricity Regulatory Bureau EKSERB Consumer grievance/mediation is expressly part of its mandate.
However, the official page publishes consumer-facing information on mandatory metering and a 3,000-prepaid-meter rollout, including how consumers can apply.

Imo State Electricity Regulatory Commission ISERC has published a detailed “How to File a Complaint” guide.
ISERC published a detailed, consumer-friendly step-by-step complaint guide in May 2026, explaining what consumers can complain about, when they should approach the regulator and what documents they should retain.
Iserc
Kogi State Electricity Regulatory Commission KERC dedicated complaint procedure has three-stage system: DisCo CCU, KERC Consumer Forum and KERC.
Also KERC tells consumers exactly the process of lodging complaint: DisCo Customer Complaints Unit, KERC Consumer Forum and KERC.
It also publishes consumer rights, including the right to education, transparent billing and prompt complaint investigation.

Niger State Electricity Regulatory Commission NSERC has developed its Consumer Affairs Office and escalation mechanism.
Good evidence of consumer-policy planning is that NSERC’s customer-protection regulation provides for Consumer Affairs Offices and requires complaint procedures/contact details to be publicised. NSERC’s customer-service regulation is notable because it doesn’t merely create a Consumer Affairs Office. It requires complaint procedures and the Consumer Affairs contact details to be published periodically in the media, and requires service providers to conduct enlightenment campaigns about complaint mechanisms.
Edo, early adopter of a true online complaint portal. EDERC launched its online complaint portal in 2024, allowing consumers to submit evidence and track complaints in real time.
ESIEC.
Nigeria has decentralised electricity regulation, but has every state regulator decentralised consumer access as effectively as it has regulatory authority?
The evidence suggests mixed results. While some regulators have sophisticated digital complaint systems and publish decisions; others have regulatory laws and institutions but considerably less visible information telling ordinary consumers where, how and when to complain.
Decentralisation has undeniably shortened the physical and psychological distance between the electricity consumer and the regulator. But it has not, on its own, solved vandalism, closed the metering gap, or ended estimated billing, problems rooted in grid-level and financing failures that outlast any single state’s jurisdiction.
The states that will be judged well are those combining visible enforcement, public education and genuine responsiveness with continued federal-state coordination on the issues, like grid stability and generation debt, that no state regulator can fix alone.