Nigeria, April 5 -- For three months, Felix Dauda* struggled to get his home connected to the electricity grid and obtain a prepaid meter. What was supposed to be a simple process became complex when officials of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) attempted to extort him.

When he visited the AEDC office in Orozo, a community in the Abuja Municipal Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the officials requested a N25,000 fee for a single-page form he would fill out to make the request. They told him it would cost N25,000 in Orozo and N20,000 at the Area office in Jikwoyi, another community a short distance away.

"That is where I started to feel uneasy," Mr Dauda told PREMIUM TIMES, wondering why there was a di...