LAST week, I intended to discuss how record-breaking heatwaves are increasing demand for cooling, prompting the International Energy Agency (IEA) to warn of mounting pressure on electricity systems. Nigeria must treat grid restructuring and coordinated distributed energy systems as national priorities for affordable electricity, industrialisation and economic development. The question is: what electricity system should we build to achieve this?

Since being sworn in on 8 June 2026, Power Minister Joseph Tegbe has spoken about strengthening the grid, expanding generation, renewables, metering, state markets and mini-grids. Individually sensible, they collectively expose the absence of a clearly articulated national power-system architecture, without which projects rarely deliver lasting value.

The first confusion: The 100-day grid debate

During his Senate confirmation screening on 6 May 2026, Tegbe told lawmakers: ”My promise to Nigerians and to this chamber is that Nigerians will see visible improvement in the sector. If you don’t see this in three months, it means you won’t see it in six months… The first phase, in 100 days, is to stabilise that grid.” Two days later, his spokesperson clarified that “Mr Tegbe made no such commitment,” explaining that deeper sector reforms would take longer. Whether the problem was media interpretation or the Minister’s wording, the episode showed why precision matters in a sector burdened by decades of unmet expectations.

The second confusion: Fifty years versus six months?

On 2 July 2026, the minister said: ”What was badly managed for 50 years cannot be resolved in six months.” He also assured Nigerians that: ”Before the end of this year, Nigerians will see significant improvement in electricity delivery.” The statements are not contradictory, but what constitutes “significant improvement”? Higher available generation, fewer grid collapses, longer supply hours or lower ATC&C losses? Without measurable indicators, success becomes political interpretation rather than objective assessment.

The third confusion:  277 Gigawatts—But what power system?

On 24 June 2026, two weeks after assuming office, Tegbe announced Nigeria’s ambition to achieve 277 gigawatts (GW) of installed electricity capacity by 2060. Installed capacity means little without a network plan. The real question is: 277 GW feeding what architecture—central generation, distributed resources, storage and mini-grids? How will they operate as one electricity system? On July 2, at the Africa Mini-Grids Programme launch, Tegbe described renewable energy as: “an integral part of our national power architecture.” Days later, during the inauguration of mini-grid projects in Adamawa State, the minister reiterated that: “Mini-grids are not a substitute for the national grid.”Yet on 22 July 2026, during a distributed-energy stakeholder engagement, the Minister declared: ”The future of energy generation no longer relies on large central power plants.” Which future is Nigeria pursuing: a stronger national transmission system or progressively decentralised electricity islands? Modern system architectures combine and coordinate strong bulk transmission with rapidly expanding distributed generation. The problem is that Nigeria has yet to articulate how these components will be integrated.

The fourth confusion:  Affordable electricity

Towards the end of July, the minister said: ”There is no policy by the present administration to increase electricity tariffs beyond the current level.” At about the same time, government reaffirmed its intention to reduce electricity subsidies and move towards a financially sustainable market. The arithmetic is simple: unless greater system efficiency reduces underlying costs, reducing subsidies ultimately means higher tariffs, more public debt or greater financial pressure on electricity companies. The confusion predates the minister. It reflects a sector that still lacks a coherent national power-system architecture.

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Twenty-seven years of projects and looming e-waste crisis

Since 1999, Nigeria has pursued the National Integrated Power Projects, privatised the electricity industry, commissioned the 700 MW Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Station, repeatedly announced the 3,050 MW Mambilla project and launched metering and renewable-energy programmes. The most ambitious was the Presidential Power Initiative, developed from Nigeria’s 2018 cooperation with Germany and formally advanced with Siemens in 2019. Its three phases targeted 7,000 MW, then 11,000 MW of reliable supply, before ultimately expanding generation and grid capacity to 25,000 MW. Buhari subsequently described the 25,000 MW objective as achievable within six years. Yet that ambition remains far from reality.

Elsewhere in Africa, similar ambitions produced different results. Over the same period, Morocco increased installed capacity by about 11,000 MW through coal, utility-scale solar and wind; South Africa added more than 25,000 MW, including over 6,000 MW procured under its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP); while Ghana expanded from about 1,200 MW in 1999 to more than 5,200 MW by diversifying from hydropower into combined-cycle gas and utility-scale solar. Siemens Energy participated in major projects across all three countries, suggesting that technology alone cannot explain Nigeria’s different outcome.

By contrast, NERC reported average available capacity of about 4,286 MW in April 2026 from an installed capacity of 13,625 MW for a population of 230 million. The comparison suggests that Nigeria’s principal bottlenecks are institutional, commercial and architectural.

Households, businesses, universities and government agencies increasingly rely on generators and distributed solar. This has made Nigeria heavily dependent on imported photovoltaic equipment, mostly from China. Yet the country lacks a comprehensive framework for managing end-of-life solar panels, batteries and related equipment. An All On market study projects cumulative solar e-waste could increase from about 3.3 million kilograms to approximately 60.3 million kilograms by 2040—a reminder that solving one system failure without planning for the entire technology life cycle can create another.

The missing national power system architecture

After 27 years of power reform, Nigeria still lacks a publicly articulated National Power System Architecture showing how generation, transmission, distribution, storage, digital control, state markets and distributed resources should operate together. Such a blueprint should answer four questions: What should Nigeria’s electricity network look like by 2050? How should state markets interconnect? Which mini-grids should remain isolated and which should synchronise with wider networks? How should storage, embedded generation and artificial intelligence improve reliability?

From one grid to interconnected regional systems

The United States operates three major interconnections: Eastern, Western and Texas. China developed large regional grid systems interconnected through extensive ultra-high-voltage transmission. Nigeria, with its vast landmass and growing electricity demand, should learn from the underlying principle: geographical decentralisation need not mean electrical isolation. Building on the decentralisation enabled by the Electricity Act 2023, state electricity markets would not become isolated electricity islands. Instead, states could generate, sell or purchase electricity across interconnected regional transmission networks under common national technical and market standards. Surplus electricity could flow across states and regions to balance supply and demand, improve reliability, strengthen competition and optimise generation assets.

Such interconnected regional systems would also improve resilience, reduce the impact of nationwide grid disturbances, and provide a coherent framework for integrating gas, hydro, utility-scale renewables, embedded generation and mini-grids into a coordinated Nigerian electricity system. This would require independent regional system operation, coordinated through common national grid codes, market rules and cross-regional settlement arrangements. The transition can begin through collaboration among the federal government, state governments and private investors, using common technical standards and coordinated planning.

Distributed resources would then become components of a larger architecture rather than isolated responses to the failure of the central grid.

Conclusion

Tegbe’s greatest legacy may not be measured by megawatts announced or projects commissioned, but by whether his tenure helps Nigeria answer one enduring question: What electricity system are we trying to build?

The epilogue of my book, The Unfinished Nigerian Project, proposes one possible framework built around interconnected regional transmission systems, coordinated distributed energy resources and modern grid management—part of a national conversation Nigeria has postponed for too long.

Until Nigeria publishes and executes a coherent National Power System Architecture, new projects—however worthwhile—will remain pieces of a puzzle whose final picture has never been shown to the Nigerian people.