Nigerians 10% Africans without light

● Cape Verde tops countries with highest electricity access ● Country to be among world’s 50% population without power access by 2050

NIGERIA, WITH 77 million people without access to electricity, accounts for 10 percent of Africa’s 770 million people without access, according to a report by the International ....

NIGERIA, WITH 77 million people without access to electricity, accounts for 10 percent of Africa’s 770 million people without access, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Africa energy outlook. This corroborates the June report of the World Bank, which indicated that one in 10 persons without electricity in the world lives in Nigeria.

Africa has at least 770 million people without electricity access, according to a 2019 energy outlook report. The figure represents 38 percent of the continent’s total population of 1.3 billion.

The IEA further said that by 2050, 50 percent of the global population without electricity access would be concentrated in seven countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Pakistan, Tanzania, Niger and Suda.

Cape Verde, a West African archipelago and island country, with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres tops the list of countries in Africa with the highest access to electricity, with 96 percent of the population having access to electricity, the report said.

Other countries on the continent with high electricity access include Ghana (85 percent), Côte d’Ivoire (76 percent), Senegal and Sao Tome (71 percent).

Nigeria, with a population of more than 200 million has only about 62 percent of Nigerians with access to electricity. The African top oil producer, running an unclear economic system, and challenged governance structure, is the second country in Africa with the highest number of people without electricity access. It follows the Democratic Republic of Congo, a former Belgian colony ravaged by many years of misrule by its late maximum ruler, Mobutu Sese Seko, followed by a long civil war leading to political and economic instability.

IMAGE BY Pius Okeosisi L-R: Toyibudeen Oduniyi, director, Bureau of Public Enterprice (BPE); Theodore Orji, chairman, senate committee on privatization and commercialization; Folake Soetan, Chief executive officer, Ikeja Electric; and Aderele Oriolowo, vice chairman of the committee, during the oversight visit to Ikeja Electric recently.