THE Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) has announced that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) had been sold for N100 billion.
The Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AMCON, Gbenga Alake, confirmed the sale during a media parley with media executives on Thursday, July 3.
In January 2022, The ICIR reported that AMCON and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company’s core investors reached an agreement to put on hold the takeover of the DisCo assets.
However, in April 2024, the Federal Government said it would sell five power distribution companies under the management of banks and AMCON.
The DisCo, managed by AMCON, is one of five listed firms. Others are the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Benin Electricity Distribution Company, Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, and Kano Electricity Distribution Company.
This development, energy analysts say, is a result of rising liquidity problems that the Federal Government had to deal with despite the privatisation of the power sector more than 10 years ago.
Speaking at the media parley, Alake said the company would soon hand over the power firm to the preferred bidder.
“Today, I announce to you that Ibadan DisCo has been sold. When we came in, it had already been sold. It was sold for how much? We got in and said no, it cannot be. We said they should go and submit a new offer that we were not going to sell for that.
“At the end of the day, we got almost double of what Ibadan DisCos was going to be sold for.”
Alake said the sale had triggered legal battles, with “so many interests now fighting and writing”.
He said that while the matter was in court, AMCON was very positive that the right thing was done.
“We have sold it… and whatever is still happening in court, we will face it,” he said.
On May 15, there were reports that the African Initiative Against Abuse of Public Trust, a civil society organisation (CSO), filed a lawsuit before the Federal High Court in Abuja against AMCON, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), and the Ibadan DisCo over an alleged proposed sale of a 60 per cent stake in IBEDC for $62 million.
The CSO, in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/866/2025, described the sale as “secretive and illegal,” adding that the alleged amount was “corruptly undervalued.”
The organisation also claimed that the deal would lead to a loss of $107 million compared to the $169 million paid for the same stake during the 2013 privatisation of IBEDC.
Meanwhile, some energy experts believe that the regulatory authorities in the power sector might need a policy rethink beyond the restructuring of DisCos’ ownership to get the distribution companies to perform better.
A former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi, told THE ICIR, “The crisis has worsened, and weakness in the sector is becoming aggravated. The power sector needs a policy rethink. We also need to be pragmatic and be efficient in our approach, while enforcing a well-thought-out regulatory intervention.
“The restructuring may not impact market functionality and improvements if the quality of the board put in place is not far better than that of the existing board.
“The restructuring will lead to some improvements in the DisCos’ performances, but will not solve the underlying problem of liquidity and structural challenges in the sector.”
He advised that, despite possible flaws in the manner that the power sector was privatised, the NERC should use tools of efficient regulation to restore the sector.
Raising a similar concern, an Associate Consultant for the British Department for International Development (DFID), Celestine Okeke, told The ICIR that the way power sector privatisation had gone so far raised questions about possible asset-stripping.
“If you look closely at the acquisition of the power assets, what does that tell you? Is it not looking like asset-stripping? Why are we not having the needed investments from those who acquired the assets? Why are banks and AMCON on a rescue mission now, despite the privatisation exercise?
“If not for the World Bank interventions and those of other developmental partners, the sector would have collapsed long ago,” Okeke said.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.