In Nigeria’s crowded urban housing market, where electricity supply is often unreliable and bills are frequently disputed, a local company is promoting software as a way to ease conflicts that have long divided tenants, neighbours and landlords. Vendr.ng is developing a platform that works with smart meters already installed by customers, rather than requiring them to purchase new equipment.
For years, Amao Sunday lived in Agege, a densely populated area of Lagos, while sharing one electricity meter with several households. Like millions of Nigerians in multi-tenant homes, he could not establish his own consumption. Instead, residents received a collective monthly charge and argued over which portion each household should pay.
“We were constantly arguing about who consumed the most,” Sunday said. “That was what prompted me to buy a smart meter.” His experience illustrates a wider problem in a country where power access remains uneven and shared meters are widespread. When no household can independently verify its usage, electricity charges can turn neighbours and tenants against each other.
Software for meters already in use
Vendr.ng, a Nigerian cloud-based vending platform, is seeking to address that problem without making its own hardware the starting point. Under a campaign called “Already bought a smart meter? We’ll still help you run it,” the company says owners of Wi-Fi-enabled prepaid meters can connect their devices to its system. The service covers meters used for electricity, gas and water, enabling customers to track consumption and add credit remotely without purchasing proprietary equipment.
The approach targets one of the main obstacles to wider smart-meter adoption: the initial expense. Nigerian electricity distribution companies have promoted metering to replace estimated bills, a system that has generated years of public anger, but many households remain reluctant to take on more utility costs. “My responsibility is to make sure installation runs smoothly, beginning with the first conversation with the customer and ending with full deployment,” said Abraham Abayomi-Daniels, a project specialist at Vendr.ng. “Clear communication is essential to making a project work.”
Landlords face a separate billing problem
Shared electricity arrangements also create losses for property owners. Mr Obi said some tenants bypassed the central meter, leaving him responsible for unpaid charges even after they had vacated their homes. “Whenever someone moved out with arrears, I had to deal with the utility company over consumption that was not mine,” he said. Disconnection and reconnection charges added to the burden and reduced his rental income.
He eventually introduced sub-metering, giving each housing unit its own usage record and bill. The disputes ended almost at once, he said. “I kept postponing the solution, but every delay made the cost higher.”
Analysts say platforms built around existing equipment, such as Vendr.ng’s, could attract users because they require less upfront spending. That matters as inflation and the weakness of the naira put pressure on household budgets and make consumers cautious about adding to their utility expenses.
It remains uncertain whether software-led services can substantially reduce billing conflicts across Nigeria, particularly in the country’s large informal housing sector. For residents such as Sunday and for landlords, however, moving away from shared and unverifiable charges has already altered their relationship with an essential service whose reliability and cost are often taken for granted.
