Social risks are at the roots of insecurity, poverty and underdevelopment if unmanaged. Electricity output and other social policy risks combine to increase
vulnerability to poverty. This paper studies the relationship between the existences of social risk management and increase in unsystematic poverty, which seems
to explain the prevalence of systematic poverty in Nigeria using structural model equations. It is found that the vulnerability of the poor increases with lack of
social risks management. We recommend that social risk management policy targets should be to adopt the ‘Nordic model’ for energy development, wages and
pension payments should be inflation indexed.