…Brightens Consumers Hope For Accurate Billing
After months of its face-off with the Federal Government on its metering initiative, the Association of Meter Manufacturers of Nigeria (AMMON) has withdrawn its suit filed against the government on the initiative, thereby renewing a major procurement process involving 1.55 million smart electricity meters for consumers in the country.
The manufacturers group in a Notice of Discontinuance at the Federal High Court in Kano, withdrew the suit that for months stalled bidding processes under key government metering intervention schemes, including the Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF 3) and the Presidential Metering Initiative (PMI).
The dispute escalated in April 2026 when the association obtained a court injunction, which halted the bidding process for the metering programmes.
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The withdrawal of the suit by the AMMON was sequel to a high-level intervention by the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, who facilitated engagements between the meter manufacturers and relevant government agencies in a bid to resolve the disagreements over the procurement framework.
The minister’s intervention is part of broader efforts to balance two key objectives namely, promoting local industrial participation in metering procurement and ensuring that Nigeria attracts the financing and technical support required to expand electricity infrastructure.
Following extensive consultations between the AMMON, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and other stakeholders, the parties consensually reached an agreement that addressed the concerns of association as well as compliance with local and international competitive procurement standards.
The resolution aligns with the government’s “Nigeria First” policy thrust, which seeks to encourage domestic manufacturing and reduce dependence on imported equipment, while still maintaining competitive standards in public procurement.
With the legal battle now closed, the government is expected to accelerate implementation of its metering programmes as part of efforts to close Nigeria’s electricity supply chain gaps and deliver a more efficient and consumer-focused power sector.
It would be recalled that the President Bola Tinubu’s administration has over the past three years consistently identified the metering gap as one of the biggest challenges confronting Nigeria’s power sector and taking sundry policy measures to frontally address the challenge.
Despite the initiative, millions of electricity consumers have no prepaid meters, leaving many to be dependent on estimated billing system that is detested by consumers over inaccurate charges and lack of transparency.
For this category of consumers that had been bearing the burden of the estimated electricity tariff regime for years, the withdrawal of the legal action by the AMMON will offer them big relief that the long-awaited transition to a fully metered electricity system will be successfully concluded.
