LAST week the British government enshrined in law its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of its GDP on overseas aid — subject, as always, to the monarch’s approval.

Forty years after the target was laid down by the UN, this commitment to redistribution, however small, should be welcomed, so long as it really is redistributing wealth.

Unfortunately, too much aid is driven by economic dogma that will only entrench inequality, profiting big business while doing nothing for ordinary people.

British support for the ongoing privatisation of Nigeria’s energy sector is a case in point.

The privatisation of energy, like the trend for privatising public water in the 1990s, has been a disaster around the world.

Access to energy is a human need, and the production of energy at a large scale doesn’t lend itself to competition.

So privatisation has created private monopolies which suck up public money without public accountability.

It’s obvious enough in Britain, where the “big six” oligopoly made £2.8 billion in annual profit at the last count, while some people on low incomes have to choose between feeding their families and paying their energy bills.

Prices have risen eight times faster than average earnings since 2010.

But at least British law carries some minimal protection for energy users. In a country like Nigeria, where only 40 per cent of the population (falling to less than 20 per cent in rural areas) is connected to the electricity grid, the impact of privatisation is even more devastating.

Nigeria has a troubled history with privatisation, with the state locked into deals which forced it to purchase expensive energy from private plants, even though it was generating its own energy more cheaply.

One particularly controversial power project, run by Enron in Lagos, ended up forming part of the major fraud case against Enron executives.

Nonetheless, the British government decided to use its aid budget to support the latest full-scale push towards energy privatisation, a far-reaching plan which the Department for International Development (DfID) itself described as “seen by many as being so ambitious as to be unrealistic.”

Since 2002, up to £140 million of British aid money has gone into projects involving Nigeria’s energy sector, paving the way for its sell-off. It includes public relations funds to help convince Nigerians that they really want their energy sector privatised.

The current project is being implemented by Adam Smith International, one of DfID’s favourite consultants, which received £45m of DfiD funding in the last year for which we have figures, largely to promote private-sector solutions. Not bad for a group that doesn’t believe in the state.

Evidence to date suggests that privatisation has been a disaster in Nigeria. This is unsurprising given that the project design barely considered poverty reduction. It particularly fails to improve electricity supply to the north of the country, where impoverishment continues to fuel violence and terrorism.

There have been significant price increases, including one later abandoned in the face of public protest. These rises were always part of the plan, with prices planned to go up by 88 per cent so that investors can claw back an expected 25 per cent return. As is common to privatisation schemes, workers have been laid off, there have been reports of continued blackouts, reduced supply and poor service.

Of course Nigeria’s public sector was never a beacon of well-run service, tarnished by claims of corruption and inefficiency. But simply introducing private monopolies is no solution. Indeed the Nigerian president’s adviser on privatisation was accused of having a commercial vested interest in privatisation. Most successful bidders had close contacts to the Nigerian government and several DfID consultants have since taken up key positions in the sector.

Similar experiences have led people around the world to fight back against privatised energy systems. And they have won: from Argentina to Lithuania, Bolivia to Japan. In Germany, there has been a massive upsurge in support for democratic control of energy, both to combat the unfairness of private energy charges and the fact that private companies have failed to invest in renewable energy. The country has succeeded in creating 60 new public utilities and held referendums on “municipalising” energy, entailing public control at a local level, with the most high-profile and successful victory coming in Hamburg.

So after 30 years of failed privatisation, there is a new democratic impetus for people to control resources like energy and water.

Britain continues to use aid money to dogmatically push the interests of big business at the expense of people.

But there is no reason why British aid shouldn’t be used to help create democratic public services in countries like Nigeria. If there are concerns about government corruption, public-sector schemes involving local government or democratically controlled utilities can help introduce accountability.

It is a scandal that an energy-rich country such as Nigeria cannot provide access to this resource for its people. The only solution is a democratic one.

•  Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now. Find out more about Global Justice Now’s energy justice campaign at www. globaljustice.org.uk. Follow Global Justice Now on Facebook and Twitter.