Politically speaking, it is ridiculous that Nigeria is still grappling with closing the energy meter gap because the provision of meters is not rocket science but only requires a strong political will on the part of the regulator to close the gap.

Generally speaking, an energy meter is like every other measuring device that is used to accurately determine the quantity of products and services bought or consumed for the purpose of settlement and value addition.

Traditionally, if one goes to any market for financial transaction, it is the seller that provides a means of measurement to determine the price a customer is expected to pay for customer satisfaction. The rice seller provides the “mudu” or “agolo” with which the quantity of rice or grain bought is measured for the customer to pay. Ditto, it is the duty of the fuel station, hotels and other service providers to make available the measuring instrument that will be used to determine the quantity of goods bought and services enjoyed for payment.

The provision of a measuring instrument is no business of the customer and the electricity market should not be an exemption! DISCOs have the sole responsibility to provide meters to measure the consumption of the customers and not the other way round.

Although it can be argued that the energy gap is an inherited liability by the DISCOs, which makes the current arrangement to be excusable. In this regard, the regulator, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has said that consumers are not mandated to pay for prepaid meters under the regulatory framework of Meter Asset Provider (MAP)/National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) but are to be given their refund of meter cost through energy credits at the point of vending.

This provision appears to be laudable because the market is not generating sufficient revenue for these distribution companies to invest in the mass provision of meters to close the existing energy meter gap but the process should be improved to make it more transparent and convincing for the customer to embrace.

The new government that promised to end estimated billing has turned a blind eye to the issue and is now more interested in increasing electricity tariff, which will further impoverish the already poor masses. This is insensitive and smirks of disregard for the feelings of Nigerians!

While the pending issues in the electricity sector are humongous ranging from inadequate generation, weak and obsolete transmission and distribution infrastructures, the starting point for a serious government should not be to make Nigerians continue to pay for darkness but to attract more funds into the sector to improve services.

One laudable step in this direction is the new electricity bill that now permits states to participate in the sector by being able to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in areas not covered by the national grid.

We hope that the sub-nationals will urgently key into this arrangement that is capable of attracting genuine investors into the largely underdeveloped energy sector in order to achieve increased generation capacity, stable electricity supply and improve the quality of life of the long-suffering Nigerians!