KEY POINTS
- Lagos residents say the solar permit fee punishes citizens for escaping government-caused electricity failure.
- The Lagos Ministry of Housing says the rule targets only government-owned social housing estates.
- Residents fear the policy is a pilot that could eventually spread to all private homes.
People in Lagos already buy their own water, fix their own roads and generate their own electricity. Now the government wants to charge them for the sunlight too.
That is how many residents in government-owned estates across Lagos are describing a new permit requirement for solar panel installations. What started as a viral video of housing ministry officials confronting a resident over an unapproved solar system has turned into a full-blown public argument about taxation, governance and the limits of what a government can ask of people it has already failed.
The Lagos State Ministry of Housing has clarified that the regulation applies only to government-owned social housing estates, not private homeowners with valid Certificates of Occupancy. That explanation has not cooled much of the anger.
“You have no right to sell God’s energy”
Ime Udoma, a retired banker living at Millennium Estate in Amuwo-Odofin, put it bluntly. He said residents are not installing solar panels as a lifestyle choice. They are doing it because public electricity has collapsed.
“People are buying solar because the government has failed to provide stable electricity, which is the minimum any responsible government should provide,” he said. “We generate water for ourselves. We generate electricity for ourselves. We fix roads around us. Then on top of that, the government still wants to charge us for trying to survive.”
Udoma described the permit fee as morally indefensible. “You have no right to sell solar energy provided by God,” he said. “If somebody in authority now wants to collect money because I am using sunlight, then it is condemnable in every form.”
What the government says and why residents do not believe it
The Ministry of Housing says the policy is about safety, not revenue. Officials argue that solar installations on shared rooftops pose structural and fire risks, and that oversight is needed to prevent one resident from monopolising available roof space.
Residents are not buying that argument. Many believe the current restriction is a pilot that will eventually expand. A resident of Lateef Jakande Estate said the pattern is familiar. “Today it is permits for solar panels. Tomorrow it may become another annual fee for maintaining them.”
The backlash reflects a broader frustration with a city where parking fees, tenement rates and permits pile up while roads crumble, power stays out and basic services remain absent. Lagosians say they are not opposed to regulation. They are opposed to being taxed for surviving a system that was never built to serve them.
