KEY POINTS

• DisCos installed 677,942 meters in 2025, an 18.51 percent jump over 2024 installations.
• The national metering rate climbed from 46.57 percent to 57.27 percent within one year.
• About 5.19 million active electricity customers still rely on estimated billing.

Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies installed 677,942 meters across the country in 2025, their strongest annual haul on record, pushing the national metering rate to 57.27 percent by December. That sounds like progress. Then consider that roughly 5.19 million active customers still have no meter at all.

Fresh data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission show that metered customers rose to 6,966,584 by the end of December 2025, up from 6,288,642 in December 2024. That translates to a 10.78 percent year-on-year increase and a 10.7 percentage-point jump in national coverage within twelve months. In December alone, distribution companies added 109,556 new meters, accelerating from the 88,592 they installed in November.

The Leaders and the Laggards

Not every DisCo pulled equal weight. Ikeja DisCo posted the strongest overall coverage, metering 1,130,213 of its 1,308,042 active customers, a rate of 86.40 percent. Eko DisCo followed at 85.87 percent, while Abuja DisCo achieved 77.81 percent. Those three companies carried most of the national performance.

Further down the table, the picture gets considerably darker. Jos DisCo metered just 31.43 percent of its customers. Yola DisCo sat at 30.80 percent. Kaduna and Kano DisCos registered 34.42 and 35.35 percent respectively. All four trail the national average by more than 20 percentage points, and none shows signs of closing that gap quickly.

The Math Does Not Lie 

At the current monthly deployment pace of roughly 100,000 meters, analysts say Nigeria needs several more years to wipe out the metering deficit entirely, and that assumes the customer base stays flat.

Adetayo Adegbemle, Executive Director of PowerUp Nigeria, put it plainly. “From the data presented against the Nigeria metering gap, we still have a long way to go. Yes, there have been improvements, but if we look at where we are headed, the rate is still very slow,” he said.

He pointed to the Distribution Sector Recovery Programme as a potential accelerant, noting that the government recently received roughly five million meters at the port under the World Bank-financed initiative. “What we need to do now is ensure proper monitoring and make sure these meters get installed in the right places,” Adegbemle said.

Consumer groups continue to argue that estimated billing erodes trust, fuels disputes and drains revenue from a sector that already struggles with liquidity. Until the metering gap closes, that argument stays difficult to answer.