Electricity Generation Companies (GENCOs) have blamed the protracted debt crisis in the country’s power sector to the lack of political will by successive governments to address the situation and guarantee stability in electricity supply.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Power Generating Companies (APGC), Dr Joy Ogaji, said this while appearing on Arise TV Breakfast programme on Thursday in reaction to the allegation credited to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Joe Ajaero, that the power sector debt was an “institutionalised extortion” by the GENCOs.
But, organised labour insisted on its allegations, describing the N6.6trillion power sector debt claim as “a clandestine heist”.
Mrs Ogaji, while responding to a question by her hosts, had asked for forgiveness to the NLC President, whom she said was making the allegations from a place of ignorance about how the debt accumulated.
In her explanation, Ogaji, who spoke on behalf of the GENCOs, said the current monthly invoice to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET), which buys electricity from GENCOs and sells to the DISCOs, was about N280 billion.
Out of this figure, she said, only 35% was paid, leaving over N200billion as unpaid monthly shortfall. She said since 2024 to date, when the total sector debt was about N4trillion, an additional N1 trillion accumulated in 2025, while the current debt is estimated to rise to about N6.6trillion by the end of February.
“The power sector debt accumulated between 2014 and 2024 to about N4trillion, and from 2024 to date, to about N6.5trillion,” she said.
Although she said the government gave a promissory note for N800billion to be used in solving the power crisis, only N500billion was realised from the issue of government bond, an amount, she said, was grossly inadequate to offset the outstanding N4 trillion debt, that was still growing.
In July 2025, she President Tinubu promised, during a meeting with the GENCOs, to approve the N4trillion to defray the legacy debts, while working to check further accumulation. She expressed disappointment that when the N4trillion was released, the President’s handlers hijacked and used it without cognisance to the implications on power generation and the GENCOs.
“If the President held a meeting with the GENCOs in July 2025 and promised to approve N4trillion to defray the power sector debt, his words should be taken to the bank, because the country can raise the N4trillion today if it wants. The only problem is that there is no political will to do so,” she said.
While appealing to the president to intervene, as the country cannot afford to run the industrial policy it launched recently without power, which she described as the bedrock upon which every industry revolves, including key sectors of the economy like education, health, etc.
Bemoaning the fate of members of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) who have been forced into private arrangements to supply power to their operations, Ogaji said the extra cost has increased the price of their products, rendering them uncompetitive in the market against foreign imported goods.
On the way forward, she urged President Tinubu to adopt a recent proposal by the Chairman of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, who called for the setting up of a Power Sector Forum where all stakeholders would come together to proffer solutions to the sector’s problems.
Also, she said in setting up the proposed Forum, the President should emulate former President Goodluck Jonathan who constituted the Presidential Task Force on Power, made up of people from the Diaspora and technocrats in Nigeria, to find solutions to the problem.
Members of the Forum, she pointed out, should be only technocrats, and not politicians, saying most of the current handlers of the power sector lacked the capacity to take the country to where it wants to be.
However, in his reaction, the NLC accused the GENCOs of misunderstanding its patriotic demands, saying the privatisation of the country’s power sector has remained “a grand deception and a well-orchestrated robbery of the Nigerian people.”
“The APGC’s whining about “victimisation” cannot mask the stench of failure that has enveloped the sector since they took over”, the NLC President said, urging the GENCOs to explain to Nigerians why they bought the entire Power assets for about N400 billion, yet demanding a payment of over N6 trillion.
“The entire power sector assets were sold for about N400 billion. Yet, we are now told that the Federal Government is contemplating a bailout of N3 trillion for the very same GENCOs who have failed to generate additional megawatt above pre-privatisation installed capacity.
“We ask the Nigerian people, can a man sell his house for 400billion and then turn around to pay the buyer N3 trillion, because the buyer mismanaged the property? This is not economics. This is a plunder. This is a clandestine scheme to transfer an additional N3trillion of public wealth; money belonging to workers, pensioners, and the masses into the pockets of a handful of speculators. They call it business, but we call it HEIST” the NLC said.
The NLC challenged the GENCOs to deny that they we not aware that from the very beginning, the sellers of these assets were in bed with the buyers, pointing out that the “incestuous relationship was an open secret, and this latest attempt at a bailout is the final stage of that heist.
On allegation that the NLC lacked the capacity to understand the situation in the power sector, the Labour movement said the organisation was not a visitor to the sector, as its members are the workers in the plants, while its affiliate, the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), is on the ground on a daily basis.
Besides, the NLC said its leadership played active and leading roles in the struggle against this flawed privatisation exercise two decades ago and understand exactly what is going on in the sector.
The NLC challenged the GENCOs to publish a full and comprehensive list of their beneficial owners and other power assets, saying it was public knowledge that those connected to the corridors of power were the same people making the demand for the N6.6trillion.
Some of the posers the NLC wants the GENCOs to provide answers to include the highest the highest megawatt (MW) of electricity they have generated and delivered to the national grid since they took over the power assets; why the level of power generation has remained averagely stagnant at between 4,000 and 5,000 MW—the exact same level before privatisation, and the objective of the privatisation exercise they have met on improving power generation, transmission, and distribution.
The NLC said the plan by the Presidency to switch its source of power supply from the national grid to solar as an independent source of power supply was an indictment of the failure privatization of the power sector.
“If the President, with all the resources of the state, is forced to generate his own power, does that not prove our point? Has the nation not been taken hostage by a cartel?
“NLC remains insistent that the state must return as the primary driver of the power sector. Electricity is a social service, not a commodity to be auctioned to the highest bidder. We reject the impudent demand for N6 trillion and this planned N3 trillion bailout. We reject the failed privatisation model. The Nigerian people cannot and will not continue to pay for darkness,” the NLC said.
