Privatization of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA)and the Reform of the Electricity Sector in Nigeria

The idea to restructure the Nigerian economy, arising from the fall in crude oil prices, started in the early 1980s when the Shehu Shagariled federal government introduced Austerity measures. However the ' ' intro~uct~on of s.A~_ PY Ibrahim Babangida ad!flin,istration . w~s, accompanied with conditionalities by the World Bank to bail the country out of the financial crises and privatization was a key component of the economic liberalization. So, from one government to the other the issue remained unresolved until General Babangida's administration promulgated the Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization (TCPC) in 1988 that actually brought the matter to the front burner. Ten years later, the government of General Abdusalami Abubakar promulgated the Public Enterprises (Privatization and Commercialization) Decree of 1999 which listed NEPA now changed to PHCN for privatization. The privatization of PHCN was consummated on 1'1 November, 2013 when President Goodluck Jonathan handed over the subsidiary companies that made up PHCN to the new core investors. The paper examines the effects of this privatization ofNEPA. It employed the theory of Liberalism to in the analysis and argued that the government carried out the process honestly, even though there were few instances where some principles of Liberalism were flouted. Based on this, the paper made some recommendations.