Let there be more light

The controversy over the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe’s, recent comment about Nigerians asking him to “slow down” because their freezers were freezing has generated more heat than the minister may have intended. Yet, beyond the colourful phrasing, the substance of his remarks deserves a more measured reading.

Tegbe was speaking at the commissioning of a 3-megawatt solar hybrid power project at Yakubu Gowon University in Abuja when he referred to feedback from electricity consumers following improvements in supply. According to him, some communities that had gone for as long as three months without electricity were now receiving up to 18 hours of supply. Some consumers, he said, had jokingly asked him to slow down because their freezers were now working continuously.

The remark was evidently intended to illustrate an improvement in supply. A freezer freezing properly should hardly be controversial. That is, after all, what it was designed to do. The larger question, however, is what happens after the freezer starts freezing.

Nigeria’s electricity crisis is too deep to be measured by the satisfaction of a household appliance. The country requires a power system capable of supporting homes, hospitals, schools, factories, farms, offices, technology businesses and an economy seeking to create opportunities for a rapidly growing population. For this reason, Nigerians should be able to acknowledge genuine improvements in electricity supply without surrendering their right to demand much more from government and the electricity industry.

There are reasons to recognise the progress being reported. The minister says some communities are moving from prolonged blackouts to as much as 18 hours of supply. The Federal Government has also continued to pursue interventions involving solar power, battery storage and other alternatives to the conventional grid. At Yakubu Gowon University, the newly commissioned project combines a 3.3MW solar array with 3MW AC output and battery storage, with thousands of solar panels and streetlights deployed across the campus. The project is expected to support lecture halls, laboratories, ICT facilities, administrative buildings and other critical university infrastructure. These are useful interventions. They should also become the beginning of a much larger effort.

The World Bank’s latest available data puts Nigeria’s electricity access at 62.5 per cent in 2024. That means 37.5 per cent of Nigerians still lacked access to electricity. The figure alone should make it difficult for anyone responsible for the sector to become complacent.

Even where electricity technically reaches a community, reliability remains another matter. Access to a grid connection is not equivalent to dependable electricity. A household that receives power intermittently still has to make alternative arrangements. A small business cannot plan production around unpredictable supply. A hospital cannot operate critical equipment on the assumption that electricity may return. A student cannot build a reliable study schedule around an uncertain grid. Nigeria therefore needs to move beyond the politics of whether freezers are freezing.

The freezer is actually a useful symbol of what Nigerians want. They want electricity to perform the ordinary functions for which electricity exists. They want to switch on an appliance and expect it to work. They want to charge a phone without running a generator. They want businesses to calculate their costs without having to guess how much diesel or petrol will be required to survive another blackout. They want hospitals and schools to function without treating alternative power sources as permanent infrastructure. Government must therefore treat every improvement as a platform for the next improvement.

If a community has moved from three months without electricity to 18 hours a day, the next question should be how to make those 18 hours dependable. The question after that should be how to move towards 24-hour supply. Where 24-hour supply is technically difficult or economically impractical in the immediate term, government should provide transparent service standards, measurable targets and clear timelines for improvement.

There is also the question of infrastructure. Tegbe acknowledged that some power infrastructure in the country is more than 40 years old and said the government was systematically replacing and phasing out obsolete facilities. This must become a sustained national infrastructure programme rather than a collection of isolated interventions.

Generation, transmission and distribution cannot be treated as separate problems indefinitely. More generation means little if transmission capacity cannot carry it. Transmission expansion means little if distribution networks cannot deliver it. And additional capacity means little to citizens if electricity cannot be supplied consistently and affordably.

The vandalism of transmission infrastructure adds another dimension to the challenge. Tegbe disclosed that three major transmission towers in Birnin Kebbi had been brought down by vandals, with parts reportedly removed for sale as scrap. The government has subsequently established a joint working committee involving the EFCC, police and NSCDC to protect national electricity assets. Such protection is essential, because billions of naira invested in infrastructure can be rendered useless by relatively small acts of sabotage.

At the same time, the government must continue expanding decentralised electricity solutions. Nigeria’s geography, population and enormous infrastructure deficit make it unrealistic to expect the national grid alone to solve every energy-access problem quickly. Solar mini-grids, embedded generation, battery storage and other decentralised systems have an increasingly important role to play, particularly in underserved communities.

The World Bank and its partners have similarly identified decentralised renewable energy as an important route towards reaching people who remain beyond reliable grid access. Globally, 655 million people still lacked electricity in 2024, with Sub-Saharan Africa carrying a disproportionate share of the deficit. Nigeria cannot afford to move at the pace of the world’s electricity deficit.

The country is one of the world’s largest concentrations of people living without reliable modern energy, and electricity remains inseparable from economic development. Every additional household connected to dependable power represents more than another meter on a wall. It represents the possibility of refrigeration, enterprise, education, healthcare, digital access and productive work.

This is why Nigerians should resist the temptation to interpret the minister’s freezer comment solely as an insult or as evidence that nothing is changing. The fuller context points to reported improvements in some areas. Those improvements deserve recognition precisely because they create a standard against which further performance can be measured. But recognition must never become complacency.

A freezer freezing is a small victory. A child studying under dependable electric light is a bigger one. A clinic maintaining vaccines without relying on a generator is bigger still. A manufacturer producing consistently without building the cost of unreliable electricity into every product is larger again. And an entire economy operating on dependable, affordable electricity is the ultimate objective. The Federal Government must therefore keep going.

It should publish clear electricity-access and reliability targets, disclose progress against them, strengthen transmission and distribution infrastructure, accelerate renewable and decentralised power projects, protect critical installations from vandalism and ensure that investment translates into measurable improvements for consumers.

Nigerians are capable of recognising progress while demanding accountability for what remains undone. They should do both. Let the freezers freeze.

Then let the factories run, the hospitals stay powered, the schools remain lit, the businesses produce and the millions still without reliable electricity finally receive the service that a modern economy requires. The real test of Nigeria’s power revolution will come when dependable electricity ceases to be remarkable enough to make the news.