President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration has taken another step towards addressing Nigeria’s longstanding electricity challenges with the approval of plans to develop new eastern and western electricity grids aimed at strengthening transmission infrastructure and reducing recurring national grid collapses.
The initiative, disclosed by the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, at the Harvard Business School Association of Nigeria (HBSAN) energy conference in Lagos, reflects the administration’s approach to tackling structural weaknesses in the power sector through infrastructure development, technical assessment and targeted investment.
According to the minister, the Federal Government is preparing to advance procurement for the proposed grids, with Nigerians expected to begin seeing benefits within two to three years.
The development comes as the Tinubu administration intensifies efforts to address the persistent transmission challenges that have undermined electricity supply to homes, businesses and industries across the country.
A major component of the government’s strategy is a nationwide technical audit of electricity infrastructure, designed to identify faults, assess the condition of existing facilities and determine which repairs or replacements require urgent attention.
Tegbe explained that the exercise would help the government direct resources towards the actual causes of transmission failures rather than spend money on repairs that do not resolve underlying problems.
“I don’t want to fix transformer issues where I have conductor and relay problems. I don’t want to fix insulators where the challenges I actually have are towers,” the minister said.
The audit is expected to be completed within a few weeks, after which its findings will guide the prioritisation of interventions across the country.
This approach provides a practical basis for infrastructure spending by linking investment decisions to identified technical problems and the specific needs of the transmission network.
The minister also drew attention to the age of Nigeria’s electricity transmission infrastructure, noting that some towers and transmission lines have remained in service since the era of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), which preceded the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).
“This government has inherited a problem of 50 years,” Tegbe said, underscoring the scale of the infrastructure deficits confronting the power sector.
For the Tinubu administration, addressing these inherited weaknesses requires more than emergency responses to grid collapses. It calls for sustained investment, improved technical planning and the modernisation of critical transmission facilities.
The proposed eastern and western grids are intended to complement these efforts by strengthening the network and improving its capacity to deliver electricity more reliably.
Tegbe said the government had divided the country into three energy zones to guide its electricity interventions, identifying the Lagos and Abuja corridors as priority areas because of their significant share of national electricity demand.
“If you fix Lagos and you fix the Abuja corridors, you’ve solved more than half of the problem of Nigeria,” he said.
The emphasis on these corridors reflects the need to prioritise areas where improvements to electricity infrastructure could have substantial effects on economic activity, commercial operations and household power supply.
Reliable electricity is essential to manufacturing, small businesses, telecommunications, healthcare and other services that support economic growth. Strengthening transmission infrastructure is therefore an important part of creating a more dependable environment for businesses and investors.
The approval of the proposed grids and the commencement of the technical audit represent important steps in the administration’s effort to confront Nigeria’s electricity transmission challenges.
However, the ultimate measure of success will be the timely execution of the projects, effective procurement, adequate funding and measurable improvements in electricity supply.
The expected two-to-three-year timeline also means Nigerians will need to assess progress against clear milestones as the projects move from planning to implementation.
For the PBAT administration and the All Progressives Congress (APC), the initiative provides an opportunity to demonstrate that longstanding national infrastructure problems can be addressed through planned investment and practical interventions.
The immediate challenge remains turning the approved plans into functioning infrastructure and ensuring that the benefits reach electricity consumers across Nigeria.