Small Scale Businesses, Deficient Electricity, Private Provision, Economic Development, North East Nigeria

Electricity supply in Nigeria is often erratic. Consumers of electricity (residential, commercial and industrial consumers) suffer untold hardships as the State Owned Enterprise; the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) has been unable to supply reliable power. This is despite massive injections of funds by the Federal Government into the operations of the company over recent years. The failure has significantly impacted negatively on the operations of the business sector especially the small scale subsector that operates with little capital and are thus in most cases unable to afford a back-up facility to ensure un-interrupted power supply for their operations. The study examined the impact of deficient electric power supply on the operations of small scale businesses operating in north east of Nigeria. From the population of small scale businesses, a sample was selected through the use of stratified random sampling to ensure the effective representation of the population of small scale businesses in north east Nigeria. Results from data analysis indicates the severity of electricity supply outages and the costs imposed by power supply outages on the operation of this class of businesses in the region. The paper therefore recommends the need for policy attention towards revitalizing the electricity sector of Nigeria for enhanced supply of electricity to the national economy. When this is achieved, the small business sub-sector will be in a position to effectively lead i