The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has expressed opposition to plans by the federal government to grant bailout of three trillion Naira (N3trillion) to privately owned electricity generation companies as part of efforts to address the power supply challenges in the country.

In a statement signed by its president, Joe Ajaero, NLC said it remains insistent that the state must return as the primary driver of the power sector.

The labour movement criticised the federal government’s planned bailout for the power generating companies describing it as economically unwise and fraught with contradictions.

According to NLC, whereas the entire power sector assets were sold for about four hundred billion Naira (N400 billion), “Yet, we are now told that the Federal Government is contemplating a bailout of three trillion Naira (N3 trillion) for the very same GENCOs. who have failed to generate additional megawatt above pre-privatisation installed capacity”

It described the response by the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) as a self-serving narrative and a misleading characterization of the patriotic demands of organized Labour.

“We reject the failed privatisation model. Electricity is a social service, not a commodity to be auctioned to the highest bidder. We reject the impudent demand for N6 trillion and this planned N3trillion bailout

“The Nigerian people cannot and will not continue to pay for darkness”.

NLC accused the operators of the GENCOs of conniving with those that executed the privatisation of power assets to shortchange the Nigerian people through an opaque privatisation process.

While responding to APGC’s press statement on February 17, 2026 accusing it of lacking the competence to understand the power sector, NLC said the association was merely attempting to justify what is clearly a brazen move to loot the public treasury.

“We reject entirely their self-serving narrative and its misleading characterization of our patriotic demands.

“First, let us state unequivocally; the NLC stands by every word of our initial press statement. The privatisation of the power sector was, and remains, a grand deception and a well-orchestrated robbery of the Nigerian people.

“The APGC’s whining about “victimisation” cannot mask the stench of failure that has enveloped the sector since they took over.

“APGC and Co need to explain to Nigerians why they bought the entire Power assets for around N400 billion, but GENCOs alone are demanding N6 trillion as APGC admitted not even the N3 trillion the Federal Government wanted to pay!

“The APGC’s press statement conveniently avoids the most scandalous contradiction at the heart of this debate.

The APGC speaks of outstanding payments, but let us talk about the grotesque mathematics of plunder,” said NLC. (THISDAY)

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