FG plans national call centre where Nigerians can report electricity outages and get them resolved

• The Federal Government plans to create a national call centre for electricity complaints.

• Nigerians will reportedly be able to use the platform to report power outages and vandalism of electricity infrastructure.

• The government has not announced the phone number or launch date for the centre.

The Federal Government has announced plans to establish a national call centre where electricity consumers across the country can lodge complaints about power outages and have them resolved directly.

Minister of Power Chief Joseph Tegbe made the disclosure on Wednesday at the commissioning of a 3-megawatt hybrid mini-grid project at Yakubu Gowon University in Abuja, saying his office was actively working on the initiative.

Beyond outage complaints, the call centre will also serve as a dedicated channel for reporting vandalism of electricity infrastructure, with the government indicating that reports received through the platform would trigger immediate action and remediation.

Tegbe said a joint team comprising the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was already being deployed to tackle the vandalism of electricity assets across the country, describing infrastructure destruction as one of the key threats to stable power supply.

The minister also used the occasion to commission a 3.3 megawatt-peak solar array with 2 megawatt-hours of battery storage at Yakubu Gowon University, installed under Phase 2 of the Federal Government's Energising Education Programme. The installation is expected to provide reliable electricity to 58,726 students and power 388 streetlights across the campus.

The Energising Education Programme has so far delivered over 100 megawatts of power across 22 federal universities and teaching hospitals nationwide, according to the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu.

Aliyu also announced the establishment of the Renewable Asset Management Company, described as a platform designed to monitor, maintain and optimise renewable energy assets after installation, addressing a long-standing concern about the sustainability of government-funded energy projects once commissioning ceremonies are over.

The Vice Chancellor of Yakubu Gowon University, Professor Akinwunmi Fawehinmi, welcomed the installation, saying reliable electricity was essential for teaching, research and campus security, and pledged that the university would ensure the facility was properly maintained.

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Nigeria's electricity sector has struggled with chronic underinvestment, infrastructure vandalism and distribution inefficiencies that have kept per capita power consumption among the lowest in Africa despite decades of reform efforts. 

The announcement of a national complaints centre represents one of the more direct attempts by the current administration to create an accountability mechanism between consumers and the power sector.

No timeline has been given for when the call centre will become operational or what number Nigerians will be able to reach it on.