CROSS-NATIONAL REVIEW OF ELECTRICITY SECTOR PRIVATIZATION: LESSONS FOR NIGERIA

Electricity sector privatization in Nigeria appears not to have brought improvement to electricity supply. Unfortunately, it betrays Nigerians’ expectations of better social and economic life. With descriptive analysis of secondary data, this work undertakes cross-national empirical review of electricity sector of 5 Countries-United Kingdom, Germany, India, Argentina and Cameroon and drew out embedded lessons from their post- privatization findings for Nigeria. Promotion of competitive power sector through deepening of liberalization, championing of cost-reflective market price, encouraging private sector investment and enhancement of electricity regulatory commission (NERC) capacity for optimum performance are essential derivable lessons gleaned, amongst others, that would make Nigeria access improved dividends of post- privatization of electricity sector. Thus, we strongly recommend that Nigeria government should confront anti-liberal and anti-competition factors prevailing in the sector with political courage and willingness to birth a new experience with measurable improvement on socio-economic life.