The federal government on Tuesday, reiterated its commitment to providing Nigerians with a reliable electricity supply, stressing that to achieve the $32.8 billion needed to achieve this milestone will require the deployment of innovative solutions.

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, said this at the ‘Mission 300’ Stakeholders Engagement meeting, held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, where he announced that $15.5 billion of the total sum is expected to be sourced from the private sector.

Mission 300 is an initiative focused on connecting 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030. Led by the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), it aims to address the significant energy access gap on the continent and accelerate the transformation of Africa’s energy sector.

Adelabu stated that the federal government was setting the power sector on the path of sustainability and bankability by prioritising the different reforms being undertaken in the sector, explaining that these are critical to the economic growth and development of the nation.

He said the stakeholders meeting would provide an opportunity to align, strategise, and to build the partnerships needed to move from Nigeria Energy Compact, to concrete results, calling on development partners, the private sector, philanthropic actors, the public sector, and the civil society organisations to rally around this mission.

“Mobilising this level of financing will demand innovation, coordination, and a shared commitment. In this room today are many of the institutions and individuals who can help us shape the future of Nigeria’s energy sector.

“Let us take this opportunity to ask hard questions, identify the practical solutions, and develop actionable plans that will make universal access a reality not just in the policy space, but in the daily lives of our citizens by powering our hospitals, our schools, our industries, and our homes”, Adelabu said.

He announced the priorities of the government in power sector reforms to include addressing the market liquidity issues and initiating required sector reforms.

“Currently, there’s a huge outstanding debt to the Power Generation Companies in the form of unpaid government subsidies which stands at about N4 trillion as of December 2024. The federal government is already working out modalities to defray this obligation and to ensure that further obligations are not accrued going forward.

“The government is working on a plan to transition the sector to a fully cost-reflective regime while implementing targeted subsidies for the economically vulnerable citizens in the country.

“Improving our power generation through recovery of idle capacities and expanding energy mix to ensure energy security, and to dilute the power pool with cheaper and cleaner energy sources (is in course),” he added.

Other areas he identified included: Expanding transmission infrastructure to deliver more power, ensuring stability of the national grid to put an end to several grid disturbances and collapses previously observed, and to further strengthen the coordination and management of the national grid.

Besides, he stated the resolve of the government in ensuring viability and performance improvement of the distribution segment of the power sector through strategic programmes like the Presidential Metering Initiative (PMI) and the World Bank-funded Distribution Sector Recovery Program (DISREP).

The minister also said that the power ministry is pursuing increased renewable energy through its rural electrification and energy transition drive, to provide a reliable power supply to unserved and underserved communities.

Through its training institute, the ministry, he said, is also working to improve human capital and local content development in the sector to reduce import dependence, stimulate jobs, and build a homegrown energy industry.

In his remarks, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, who spoke through zoom from Brazil also said that the reforms the government was undertaking in the power sector were critical towards unlocking the full potential of the economy as it would lead to job creation.

He said the reforms have led to “over 40 per cent” increase in power distribution in the first quarter of 2025.

Also present at the meeting were the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Chief Geoffrey Nnaji, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, World Bank officials, heads of agencies in the power ministry, and partners in the sector.

Emmanuel Addeh

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