Precious Anga
Lagos — The Rural Electrification Agency, REA, has called for a unified approach among government agencies, state governments, development partners, private operators and other stakeholders to accelerate electricity access across Nigeria.
The agency’s Managing Director, Dr Abba Abubakar Aliyu, made the call in Abuja at the official relaunch of the Off-Grid Stakeholder Coordination and Partnership Forum.
Aliyu said stronger coordination was necessary to prevent duplication of electricity projects, improve the use of limited resources and ensure that interventions reached communities that needed power the most.
He said an analysis of the 2024 and 2025 Federal Government budgets using artificial intelligence showed that several government institutions were implementing power-related projects, including agencies not traditionally regarded as major players in the power sector.
The REA boss warned that failure to bring state governments into the coordination process could undermine national electrification efforts.
“If we continue to work the way we currently do without bringing the states into this conversation and coordination, I can tell you that we will simply be planning to fail,” Aliyu said.
He disclosed that REA had itself encountered situations where projects being implemented under different programmes overlapped at the same locations.
According to him, the challenge has become more pressing as funding for the power sector continues to shrink, making it necessary for stakeholders to share data and coordinate interventions to maximise available resources.
Aliyu said a centralised sector-data platform would help stakeholders identify existing projects, prevent duplication and establish areas where new interventions are required.
In his keynote address, the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, represented by his Chief of Staff, Doyin Adelabu, also identified fragmentation as a major obstacle to efficient electricity-project delivery.
“Fragmentation is the quiet tax every under-coordinated sector pays: in duplicated effort, missed investment opportunities, and slower delivery of power to the Nigerians who need it most,” Tegbe said.
The minister said the Federal Government was establishing a standing Off-Grid Coordination Secretariat to track commitments and risks, convene issue-based working groups and develop shared market intelligence.
He urged development partners, financiers, private operators, state governments and civil society organisations to nominate focal points, share relevant data and commitments, and participate actively in the working groups.
Tegbe said the Federal Ministry of Power would continue to provide policy direction through the National Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan, while supporting the development of state electricity markets under the Electricity Act.
Earlier, the Executive Director of the Rural Electrification Fund, Doris Uboh-Ogunkoya, said coordination should become a continuous function rather than an activity restricted to periodic meetings.
She said the Off-Grid Coordination Secretariat would help stakeholders identify gaps, address bottlenecks and monitor commitments between meetings.
“The aim is not simply to hold more meetings, but to align our efforts, identify gaps, address bottlenecks, and follow through on commitments between meetings,” Uboh-Ogunkoya said.
Also speaking, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria representative, Ikenna-Donald Ofoegbu, urged stakeholders to look beyond the number of electricity connections delivered when assessing the impact of off-grid interventions.
He called for greater emphasis on the productive use of electricity, innovative financing, project sustainability and local capacity development.
Ofoegbu said the sector needed to move from individual interventions to a coordinated national ecosystem capable of attracting investment and supporting economic activity.
The Off-Grid Stakeholder Coordination and Partnership Forum began as a donor roundtable in April 2017 and is now being relaunched under a new coordination framework.
The Federal Government said more than 7.5 million Nigerians had gained electricity access through more than 200 solar hybrid mini-grids and about 1.8 million solar home system connections.
The Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up programme is targeting an additional 17 million Nigerians and about 465 megawatts of new renewable-energy capacity.
Nigeria is also participating in the broader Mission 300 initiative, which aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030.
The renewed coordination drive comes as Nigeria seeks to expand electricity access through a combination of grid development, state electricity markets and off-grid renewable-energy solutions, making effective planning and deployment of limited resources increasingly important.
