The Federal Government says it plans to push electricity access beyond 80 per cent within five years while closing the gap between installed and available generation within three years.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this while presenting a paper on industrialisation and regional competitiveness at a Nigeria Economic Summit Group event in Lagos. He also said the government is working to reduce Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection losses to below 16.92 per cent.
Tegbe said the reforms include strengthening transmission along the Lagos, Enugu-Port Harcourt and Abuja-Kaduna-Kano corridors, deploying seven million meters and training 5,000 people. He added that the government plans to develop an independent electricity market, improve sector liquidity and reduce recurring debts and losses.
The ministry said Nigeria currently has 13,625 megawatts of installed grid capacity but only 4,854MW of average daily availability, leaving about 62 per cent of installed capacity idle. It noted that inadequate supply has pushed businesses towards costly self-generation, with Nigerians spending N16.5 trillion on alternative power in 2023, compared with about N1 trillion in grid revenue.
Speaking at the event, the Director of Research and Economic Policy Division at the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Dr Oluwasegun Osidipe, said inadequate energy supply remained the biggest constraint identified by manufacturers in the Q2 2026 Manufacturers’ CEO Confidence Index.
He said manufacturers have invested heavily in alternative power because of unreliable grid supply, further increasing production costs and weakening their ability to compete.
