ELECTRICITY BAND SEGREGATION IN NIGERIA: EXAMINING ITS IMPACT ON FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY

Abstract

In April 2024, the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), promulgated a revised electricity tariff regime that formally classified consumers across Nigeria into five service bands - Band A through Band E, and subjected consumers in each band to different tariff rates commensurate with their assessed quality of electricity supply. The immediate and most consequential effect was a tariff increase of approximately 240 per cent for Band A consumers, justified on the grounds of cost-reflective pricing, with lower bands ostensibly buffered from immediate increases. This article argues that the band tariff structure, as conceived and implemented, constitutes a serious derogation from the fundamental rights of Nigerian citizens to equality before the law and to equal access to public utilities that are essential to the realisation of the right to life and human dignity. Drawing on the constitutional provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the domesticated norms of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the interpretive frameworks developed by Nigerian superior courts and international human rights bodies; the article demonstrates that the band dichotomy reproduces geographic, socioeconomic, and demographic inequalities in constitutionally impermissible ways. It further argues that the framework adopted by the government fails to satisfy the requirements of proportionality and non-discrimination that Nigerian constitutional law and international human rights law jointly impose. It posits that a rights-consistent alternative is both legally compelled and practically achievable. The article calls for structural reform of the tariff regime grounded in principles of energy justice, constitutional equality, and the state's affirmative obligations toward the most vulnerable segments of the Nigerian population.