NISER canvasses power sector reform to curb rural-urban drift

The Federal Government has been urged to give more impetus to rural electrification projects across the country to promote rural industrialisation and curb rural-urban drift.

A Research Fellow in the Institute’s Department of Agriculture and Food Policy, Dr. Femi Ogundele, who presented the findings of the national survey during the monthly Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) research seminar lecture in Ibadan, Oyo State yesterday, insisted on the need by the authorities to “exercise caution on the extent to which tariff on electricity can be increased as households do not adjust electricity expenditure upward proportionately to increase in tariff.

“As such, drastic increase in tariff may not immediately generate the expected result in terms of raising the revenue of the distribution companies,” he said.

According to him, it is important that electricity supply should
reach the minimum daily average of 10 hours considered as satisfactory by households before any tariff adjustment.

Based on its national survey, conducted across the six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) in Ibadan, Oyo State, called for differential tariff regimes between the rural and urban areas “to cushion the effects of electricity expenditure on non-food expenditures.”