The Constitutional Amendment Heralding The Decentralization Of The Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry

On March 17, 2023, an Act to alter certain provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (the “1999 Constitution”), to allow constituent states within the Nigerian federation (the “States”) to generate, transmit, and distribute electricity in areas covered by the national grid and for related matters (the “NESI Constitutional Amendment”) came into force, following the assent, to the said Act, by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR. Specifically, Paragraph 14(b) of the Concurrent Legislative List detailed in Part II of the Second Schedule to the 1999 Constitution was amended by the deletion therefrom of the phrase “not covered by a national grid system”. In essence, the NESI Constitutional Amendment now confers the States with (i) powers to generally make laws regarding the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, within their respective States; (ii) the latitude to regulate the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity within their respective States. Read more