The adoption of energy efficient electrical appliances by households has a great potential to reduce electricity consumption in Nigeria. A well-formulated and implemented policy (mix) to spur adoption is said to be required to drive this process. This article presents an assessment of policies that aim to spur adoption among households, and the related governance system. The analytical framework used for this analysis is the Governance Assessment Tool (GAT). Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, a review of policy documents, and secondary quantitative data. The results show that policies in Nigeria had little effect in meeting pre-set goals. The governance system was found to be weakly developed due to a lack of policy, the overlapping work of different governmental organizations, a lack of appropriate resources, and a lack of householders’ involvement in agenda-setting and decision-making processes. Current actions mostly depend on local programmes that run via donor aid. They include the free exchange of CFL bulbs and metering studies of end user energy consumption. The results add further insight in the fields of governance and policy on energy efficiency issues in developing countries. This article also provides suggestions for the design of policies that target the adoption of energy efficient electrical appliances among households in Nigeria.