…2013 electricity privatization only yielded darkness in Nigeria – Jakpor

By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AMID growing concerns over the impact of privatization on essential public services, trade union leaders and civil society actors from Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda have launched a renewed campaign to reclaim public control of electricity, water, and waste management sectors across Africa.

The call was made at the 2025 PSI-DGB Project Conference held in Abuja, with the theme ‘Promoting Transparency and Decent Work in Supply Chains in Electricity, Water and Waste Services in Sub-Saharan Africa – Phase II’, the two-day meeting, organized by Public Services International, PSI, brought together key stakeholders from across the continent to share experiences and chart a unified course of action.

Participants criticized the trend of outsourcing critical utilities to private and multinational entities, arguing that it has led to rising costs, declining service quality, and deepening inequality.

Speaking at the forum, a member of Kenya’s Parliament and Energy Committee, Hon Tom Mboya Odege said Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda were selected for the initiative due to the scale of challenges they face in their public utility sectors.

Odege also pointed out contradictions in power generation across the continent while he cited Uganda’s underperformance despite its access to the River Nile and Lake Victoria, and criticized Kenya’s solar power model that favoured private investors over public solutions.

He said: “We are here to share knowledge and develop a collective strategy. Foreign corporations continue to exploit our countries while our people suffer poor services. Despite Nigeria’s wealth of natural and human resources, it still relies heavily on foreign investors in sectors it could competently manage.

“We are allowing systems that prioritize profit over people. Until we take responsibility for our own development, we’ll remain trapped in this cycle of dependency.”

Meanwhile, one of Nigeria’s trade union leaders, Comrade Bello Ismail, echoed serious concerns by citizens, and lamented that privatization has exacerbated poverty and inequality in Nigeria.

“With over 200 million citizens, half of whom live in poverty, privatization has only enriched a few while public services have deteriorated. Electricity, water, and waste management should serve the people, not the market”, Ismail added.

The Chairperson, Uganda Public Employees Union, Namirenbe Agatha, in her remarks shared Uganda’s pathetic story on water accessibility as she gave an example in resisting water privatization.

“Our water utility remains 100 per cent publicly owned and is the top-performing in East and Central Africa. Privatization focuses on profit, not people, and that is why we have rejected it”, she stated.

Meanwhile, in an opening remark, the Regional Secretary, Public Services International, PSI, Daniel Oberko, said: “Privatisation puts profit before people. That is why out 2025 AFRICON which is taking place in Ghana from November 11-14, 2025, would become a rallying point to send a strong signal to our government, private interest, multinational institutions that we remain in the course that it is only quality public service that can guarantee a life of dignity for all.”

He added that Public Utilities Workers Union in Ghana had for the third time resisted and pushed back attempts to privatise the Electricity Company of Ghana.

In presentation by Philip Jakpor, titled ‘Overwiew and Impact of Privatisation on the Public and Workers in the Electricity, Water, and Waste Sector in Africa’, which he asserted that, “Nigeria is target of the privatizers due to its huge population which translates to enormous profit-making potentials in the eye of privatisers.”

He further stated that, “Privatisers have been active in the water and waste sector – EU, World Bank, IFC and donor agencies like USAID, WaterAid.”

He also lamented that, “Most of the 36 States have collected huge loans from EU and World Bank for water schemes that never worked and generations will have to pay back.

“In the World Bank’s Second National Urban Water Sector Reform Project nearly $7.5 million was allocated specifically for PPP development.

“The World Bank played influential role in development of Nigeria’s pro-privatisation National Action Plan for the water sector. The rested National Water Bill was to open the doors.

“Nigeria’s electricity sector privatization carried out in 2013 has only yielded darkness as power generation has remained abysmal at 4000 mega watts where it was in 2013. Opportunity for resistance growing due to huge tariffs and incessant national grid collapse.

“N4 trillion bail out for generating companies after failing Lagos experimented privatising the waste sector through a Dubai-based company called VisionScape and still actively pushing to privatise water.

“Waste sector largely unorganised. Robust civil society and labour network challenging privatisation especially in the water sector.”

In an address of welcome, the General Secretary of Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUPCTRE, Comrade Waheed Sikiru, said African countries were given independence but are not independent, and said it is very important for Africans to come together and address the issues holistically, especially, “privatization that is making a lot our people to lose their jobs, which is not doing us any good in any part of Africa, and we have seen that in other parts of Africa that is not paying them. In this meeting we should look at how do we overcome the evils of privatization and fashion out programmes to get us out of this quagmire?”

The participants at the conference called for stronger and increased collaboration among African trade unions and civil society organizations to protect public services from privatization pressures and ensure utilities remain publicly accountable and accessible to all.