---

Electricity generation started in Nigeria in 1896 but the first electric utility company, known as the Nigerian Electricity Supply Company, was established in 1929. By the year 2000, a state-owned monopoly, the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), was in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power in Nigeria. It operated as a vertical integrated utility company and had a total generation capacity of about 6, 200 MW from 2 hydro and 4 thermal power plants. This resulted in an unstable and unreliable electric power supply situation in the country with customers exposed to frequent power cuts and long period of power outages and an industry characterised by lack of maintenance of power infrastructure, outdated power plants, low revenues, high losses, power theft and non-cost reflective tariffs.

---