…demands judicial alignment with new State-level laws
Stories by Seun Ibiyemi
The persistent failure of Nigeria’s national power grid has been labeled a “national embarrassment” by Dr. Musiliu Oseni, Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
Speaking at the 2026 NERC Seminar for Judges in Abuja on Monday, Dr. Oseni signaled a rigorous new era of enforcement and regulatory shifting as the industry decentralizes.
The seminar was organized to brief the judiciary on the radical transformation of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), particularly the migration of regulatory authority from the federal center to state-level institutions.
Dr. Oseni revealed that NERC has significantly ramped up its oversight of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) project.
This system is the primary technological defense against nationwide blackouts, designed to monitor and stabilize the grid in real-time.
Alongside SCADA, the establishment of the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) marks a structural pivot toward private-sector involvement in transmission infrastructure.
Dr. Oseni emphasized that NERC is now championing clusters of excellence, pockets of the country with guaranteed access to reliable power to support the real economy while also establishing customer care clinics across all DisCos to fix broken service delivery.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Hon. Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, informed judicial officers that they are now the primary arbiters of a highly complex, decentralized legal landscape.
With state governments now wielding authority over electricity regulation, the judiciary must interpret a new wave of statutes to maintain legal certainty and public confidence.
Minister of Power Chief Adebayo Adelabu echoed this, noting that the fundamental transition to a sub-national governance model requires judges to be experts in sector-specific regulations to resolve the inevitable disputes arising from private sector participation.
While the regulatory framework shifts, the operational data remains grim. NERC’s January 2026 figures show that while Nigeria boasts an installed capacity of 13,625 MW, its power plants operated at a dismal 36% availability factor.
This means nearly two-thirds of the country’s power infrastructure sat idle. Average generation hovered at 4,421 MWh, with total available capacity reaching only 4,901 MW.
Analysts like Chinedu Okafor of Power Metrics Africa point out that the crisis is one of resources lying fallow. For example, Egbin, the nation’s thermal giant operated at only 51% availability. Major plants like Afam and Ibom Power produced little to no electricity.
The bottleneck remains a fundamentally broken gas-to-power chain, plagued by pipeline vandalism and transmission caps that limit the grid’s evacuation capacity to just 5,500 MW.
The World Bank estimates that this inadequate power costs Nigeria $29 billion annually, or roughly 2% of its GDP.