“NEPA has taken light”: why Nigerians still say NEPA

The fan slows down, the fridge goes quiet, the television dies mid-sentence, and somewhere in the house somebody says it: “NEPA has taken light.” Within a minute the first generator on the street coughs into life, then another, until the whole neighbourhood is humming. When the power comes back, children shout “Up NEPA!” as if their team had scored.

The strange thing is that NEPA, the organisation those phrases name, no longer exists. This article explains what it was, what replaced it, and why the name refuses to die. Facts are checked against the sources at the end.

What does NEPA stand for?

NEPA stands for the National Electric Power Authority. It was Nigeria’s state electricity company, created by a decree in 1972 that merged the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria with the Niger Dams Authority, which ran the big hydroelectric dams. For three decades NEPA generated, transmitted and sold almost all of the country’s grid electricity. To most Nigerians, electricity and NEPA were the same thing.

“Never Expect Power Always”

NEPA was also famous for failing. Outages were so frequent that the public turned its initials into a joke: Never Expect Power Always. It is one of the best-known backronyms in Nigeria, and it explains a lot about why the name stuck. People were not naming a company; they were naming an experience.

What happened to NEPA?

1. 2005: reform. The Electric Power Sector Reform Act opened the industry to private investors and set out to break the national utility into separate companies for generation, transmission and distribution.
2. PHCN. NEPA was turned into the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, which held the successor businesses until they were sold. Many Nigerians simply carried on saying NEPA.
3. 2013: privatisation. By late 2013 the generation companies and 11 distribution companies, the DisCos, had been sold to private owners, and PHCN ceased to exist on 30 September 2013. The national grid itself, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, stayed in government hands.

So today, a Lagos household buys its electricity from a private distribution company, and a separate regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, sets the rules. None of that has changed what people call it when the lights go out.

Why Nigerians still say NEPA

• The experience did not change overnight. Outages continued after privatisation. In 2022 the national grid collapsed twice in a single week. If the lights behave the way NEPA’s did, people will call it NEPA.
• It is shorter and funnier. “NEPA has taken light” rolls off the tongue. Nobody wants to say “my distribution company has interrupted supply”.
• It is a shared joke. Every Nigerian, at home or abroad, knows the phrases. Saying them is a small way of belonging.
• Brand names become words. Just as some people “hoover” with any vacuum cleaner, Nigerians “take light” with any electricity company.

The phrases, explained

Why “light” and not “power”?

In Nigerian English, light is the everyday word for mains electricity, not just for lamps. “Is there light?” means “is the power on?”, and “we have not had light since Tuesday” is a complaint about the whole supply, fridge and fan included. So when NEPA “takes” the light, it is taking all of it. Visitors who hear the phrase for the first time often picture a single bulb going out; Nigerians picture the whole evening changing.

Saying it abroad

Nigerians in London, Houston or Toronto, where the power almost never goes, still use the phrases, half as a joke and half out of habit. A flicker in a London flat gets a “NEPA!” from anyone who grew up with it, and it is a quick way to spot a fellow Nigerian in a room. Some say it about anything that cuts out without warning: a video call, a Wi-Fi signal, a friend who stops replying.

For more everyday expressions, see our guides to Nigerian Pidgin phrases and Nigerian slang.

Life with generators

Because the grid has never been reliable, Nigerians generate a huge amount of their own power. Homes, shops and offices run petrol and diesel generators, from small petrol sets outside a single room to big diesel sets behind office blocks. As far back as 2008, privately owned generators were estimated to supply around 6,000 megawatts, a big share of the country’s power at the time. The result is noise, fumes, fuel bills that rise with every petrol price increase, and a whole trade of repairmen who can bring a dead generator back to life.

The fumes are a real danger: never run a generator indoors or in a closed space, because it can kill with carbon monoxide.

NEPA in AJ Cities

AJ Cities is a free browser game set on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos, and the power cuts are part of the street. On the estate, the generators start their evening choir most nights around eight, when the power goes, and everybody at Iloro House ends up on the veranda. Danger, who brings dead generators back to life with a screwdriver and a few words he would not say in church, reads his verses there when NEPA takes the light, and the whole house goes quiet to listen. Down the corridor, Dozie, who is “in opportunities”, knows about a generator that runs on water. Nobody has seen it run.

What does NEPA stand for?

National Electric Power Authority, Nigeria’s state electricity company from 1972 until it was renamed PHCN and then broken up and privatised.

Does NEPA still exist?

No. It became the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, which ceased to exist on 30 September 2013 when the power sector was privatised. Nigerians still use the name.

What does “NEPA has taken light” mean?

It means the electricity has gone off. “Up NEPA!” is the cheer when it comes back.

What was NEPA’s nickname?

“Never Expect Power Always”, a joke on its initials because of frequent outages.