Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Residents of the Bagadaza community in Akko Local Government Area, Gombe State have escalated their complaints over an ongoing power outage that has persisted for more than six months, igniting frustration, financial strain, and concerns over electricity billing despite the absence of power supply. The prolonged blackout, attributed to repeated breakdowns of a distribution transformer, has drawn attention to broader challenges affecting electricity delivery, infrastructure responsibility, and consumer rights in Nigeria’s power sector.
Community leaders say the first sign of trouble began in late 2025 when the sole transformer serving Bagadaza developed a fault, triggering a cascade of difficulties that the community has struggled to resolve. Residents were initially asked to contribute funds to repair the faulty transformer—a request they met by raising 800,000 naira in pooled contributions under difficult economic conditions. However, just two months after that preliminary repair, the transformer again failed, forcing fresh negotiations with the contractor. On that occasion, the contractor initially demanded 1.2 million naira, a figure later reduced back to 800,000 naira after community pushback. According to representatives, the latest proposal by the contractor calls for an additional 500,000 naira from the community, with the electricity distribution company expected to cover the balance, a scenario many residents describe as untenable under current economic pressures.
Mr. Gaius Lamela, speaking on behalf of residents, explained that repeated calls for cash contributions have strained social relations and placed undue burden on families already struggling with rising costs of living. “Some people even insulted me over the previous contributions. I’m not sure we can raise this money again,” Lamela said, underscoring the emotional as well as financial toll these requests have had on neighbours.
Beyond funding repairs, the sustained outage has disrupted daily life in tangible ways. Edward Aliyu, another community member, described how the lack of reliable electricity has exacerbated food spoilage due to inability to refrigerate perishable items, increased household expenditure on alternative energy sources like generators, and hindered routine domestic activities. He lamented that the absence of power has worsened overall living conditions, saying that residents had been forced to seek intervention from politicians and even the Accountant-General of the state, who allegedly promised to investigate the situation.
Perhaps most contentious is the continuation of electricity billing despite the community experiencing months without power. Residents expressed disbelief and outrage that bills continue to be issued for service not received, a practice they argue is fundamentally unjust and contrary to principles of fair billing. “Surprisingly, we are still being billed for the six months we have been without power,” Aliyu said, capturing a growing sense of injustice and helplessness among households already feeling neglected.
Attempts to obtain clarification from the Jos Electricity Distribution Company regional office in Gombe were unsuccessful at the time of reporting. A spokesperson based at the company’s headquarters in Jos, Saratu Aliyu, acknowledged the situation and indicated she was awaiting accurate information from the state management to provide a formal response. “I am still expecting feedback from the state management. Please bear with me, I am working on it,” she told journalists.
The grievances raised in Bagadaza mirror a pattern of complaints from communities across Nigeria that grapple with unreliable electricity supply, infrastructure failures, and questionable billing practices. In other parts of the country, residents have voiced similar frustrations over requests from distribution companies for community contributions to purchase or repair transformers—assets that regulatory frameworks typically assign to the responsibility of the electricity providers.
The challenges facing Bagadaza also reflect deep-rooted issues in Nigeria’s broader power sector—an infrastructure long plagued by ageing equipment, underinvestment, inadequate maintenance, and technical losses in transmission and distribution networks. These systemic weaknesses contribute to frequent outages and force many communities to resort to self-funded solutions, often without guarantees of sustained service. Analysts note that while the sector has undergone reforms and privatisation efforts over the years, structural and operational gaps persist, leaving millions of consumers to navigate unreliable networks and billing practices that sometimes appear disconnected from actual service delivery.
Consumer advocates argue that billing during verified and prolonged outages runs counter to basic regulatory protections and consumer rights, urging oversight from regulatory bodies to ensure that communities are not unfairly charged for electricity they have not consumed. They also highlight the need for transparent communication from distribution companies about outage timelines, billing adjustments, and the criteria governing contributions to infrastructure repairs when such contributions are considered.
At the heart of the Bagadaza dispute is a fundamental question of accountability: who bears the cost for essential infrastructure that fails, and how should consumers be treated when they have already invested their limited resources into remedies that have yet to restore service? Residents are calling for a decisive resolution that does not shift the full burden of infrastructure costs onto them, along with clear assurance that billing records will be corrected to reflect the actual absence of electricity supply over the past six months.
As the dialogue continues between the community, local authorities, regulatory agencies, and the distribution company, Bagadaza’s experience highlights persistent challenges in Nigeria’s energy sector—challenges that affect economic wellbeing, household resilience, and trust in essential service providers.
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