Adelabu and the Ministry of Power: Tenancy of Corruption in Nigerian Homes
By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
Darkness has once again taken residence in Nigeria—not as an accident of nature, but as a policy outcome. We are told the national grid has collapsed again. As usual, the announcement is casual, almost ceremonial, as though grid failure were a seasonal festival. Yet for nearly a month now, what Nigerians have endured is not merely darkness, but a more sinister affliction: corruption transmitted through electricity into private homes.
This is not poetry. It is experience.
The so-called band classification system—Band A, B, C—has collapsed alongside the grid itself. Supply is neither predictable nor accountable. But the deeper tragedy is this: when light eventually comes, it arrives as a destructive force. It burns machines, destroys appliances, destabilizes homes, and drains family finances. The power sector has perfected a cruel paradox—electricity that cannot power a refrigerator but can destroy a pumping machine; current that cannot charge a phone safely but can blow security bulbs across an entire compound.
I returned home recently to meet a ruined pumping machine. Five toilets in a home without water is not an inconvenience; it is humiliation. We could not even buy water—because neighbors who normally sell had also lost their pumping machines to the same violent current fluctuations. This is how corruption reproduces itself: one bad transformer poisons an entire community.
The mystery deserves serious study. The electricity that destroys machines cannot power sockets consistently. Chargers burn out in days. At least six have been replaced in my household alone. Security lights are gone. The compound remains in darkness even when power is supposedly restored. Out of fear—fear of further loss—we now rely on generators to pump water even when public power is available. Imagine the perversity of that arrangement.
This is not technical failure. It is institutionalized irresponsibility.
A neighbor, Charles Enahoro, raised the alarm earlier. He approached the community coordinator and paid money—because that is now the ritual—yet nothing changed. The Distribution Company’s operational team has visited repeatedly, each visit extracting a cost, each visit ending in nothing. A business model has emerged from dysfunction: problem, visit, payment, persistence of problem.
In the company of Mr. Sola Ehimisan, we once encountered Mr. Sunday Oyesina, who attempted an explanation. Yet again, it ended where it always ends—contribution. Why should citizens pay for an epileptic service and still be coerced into funding the corruption of those mandated to serve them?
This is where leadership responsibility must be named.
The Ministry of Power cannot continue to hide behind technical jargon while Nigerians bleed financially in their homes. Under Adebayo Adelabu, the power sector has become a landlord of misery, collecting rent through estimated bills, destroyed appliances, generator dependence, and extorted “fixes” that fix nothing. Corruption is no longer abstract; it now lives in wall sockets.
Even more troubling is the normalization of this suffering. “No be deal,” people say. Everyone has adjusted. Everyone is dancing to the music of dysfunction. This psychological surrender is perhaps the greatest victory of corruption—it convinces victims that pain is normal.
But some of us refuse normalization.
Whoever is in charge of Olayiwola in New Oko Oba and the Ijaye Ojokoro office of Ikeja Electric should take notice. This is a formal civic warning. You have until 31 January 2026 to resolve the persistent current fluctuation, equipment damage, and extortionate practices in this area.
1 February 2026 will not be smiling.
This is not a threat of violence. It is a declaration of civic resistance. Nigerians are tired of paying for darkness, funding incompetence, and subsidizing corruption that enters their homes through the wires meant to bring light.
The time to act is now.
Electricity is not a privilege.
Light is not a favor.
And corruption has no tenancy rights in Nigerian homes.
Enough.
