‘Stop Billing Darkness’: Murray-Bruce Slams DisCos, Urges Tinubu to Scrap Failed Power Privatisation

Media mogul and former lawmaker, Ben Murray-Bruce, has called on President Bola Tinubu to abandon Nigeria’s 2013 electricity privatisation, describing it as “a monumental catastrophe” and urging the government to decentralize power generation to communities, estates and states.

In an open letter to the President released on Friday, August 29, 2026, Murray-Bruce said the current model has failed Nigerians, pointing to fresh data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.

“In April this year, our own regulator, NERC, published the figures. Of 13,625 megawatts of installed generation capacity, only 4,286 megawatts were available for dispatch. Thirty-one per cent,” he wrote.

He cited the grid collapse of Saturday, August 22, when generation fell to 1,132 megawatts at 8:30pm from over 4,000 megawatts earlier that day, with 12 power stations including Egbin, Geregu, Kainji, Shiroro and Zungeru producing nothing.

“That is not an industry, Your Excellency. That is a rumour of an industry,” Murray-Bruce stated.

The former Bayelsa lawmaker blamed the 2013 privatisation for transferring assets to buyers “who had enough money to purchase the assets” but “did not have enough money to run them.”

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“A serious distribution company in a country of 240 million people needs a balance sheet measured in billions of dollars, not billions of naira. They do not have it. They never had it,” he said.

He noted that while PHCN owed nothing, today’s private owners have left the country with over ₦7 trillion in GenCo debts and a ₦4 trillion bond approved by the Tinubu administration to clean up liabilities. “Roughly ₦10 trillion of public money has gone into this sector in thirteen years and the lights are still off,” he added.

Murray-Bruce also accused Distribution Companies of revenue extraction without service. As of February 2026, 5.1 million of 12.31 million active customers remain unmetered, 41 per cent. He listed Yola at 31.86 per cent metered, Jos 34.04 per cent, Kano 35.37 per cent and Ibadan with nearly half of its 2.48 million customers unmetered.

“Yet between January and April, the DisCos collected ₦801.16 billion. A meter is a machine that tells the truth. An estimated bill is a machine that does not. An industry that cannot generate power has discovered it can still generate revenue by billing darkness,” he said.

Murray-Bruce proposed a decentralized model backed by the Electricity Act 2023, which moved electricity to the Concurrent List.

He suggested communities like Dolphin Estate in Lagos borrow ₦3 billion, with state guarantees, to build metered solar systems and sell power at cost plus 25 per cent margin. States should power streetlights, PHCs and schools with solar, while the Federal Government focuses on federal roads, hospitals and universities.

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“The funds exist,” he argued, citing World Bank estimates of $26 billion lost annually to unreliable power and $12 billion spent yearly on generators. “We are already paying for power. We are simply paying for the most expensive, dirtiest and least reliable version of it.”

He pointed to Aba, where Geometric Power’s 188MW plant kept 900,000 people lit during the January 23, 2026 national grid collapse. “One city solved it. Not with a policy paper. With a plant and a meter.”

Murray-Bruce also urged Nigerians to hold governors and local councils accountable, noting that electricity is now a concurrent responsibility. He added that the Federal Government paid only ₦77 billion of ₦1.859 trillion in subsidy invoices between April 2025 and April 2026.

“Do this, and I will say it publicly and plainly: within four years, seventy per cent of Nigeria will have power. Forget PHCN. Forget the men who bought what they could not run,” he added