By Onu Okorie
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Mr Joseph Tegbe, has outlined a Ministerial Action Plan aimed at stabilising and growing the country’s electricity sector.
Speaking at the second quarterly Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry NESI Stakeholders Meeting convened by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission NERC in Abuja, Tegbe framed his plans around the conviction that Nigeria’s electricity crisis demands collective ownership across the entire value chain.
The forum, chaired by NERC Chairman Dr Musiliu Oseni, brought together power sector operators, regulators and policy actors, and was attended by the Special Adviser to the President on Power, Mr Rilwan Lanre Babalola, and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Alh Mahmud Mamman.
“Nigeria’s power crisis was not built by one hand, and it will not be fixed by one hand,” he said, calling on GenCos, DisCos, TCN, NISO, regulators and government to share responsibility for both the depth of the problem and the discipline required to solve it.
On infrastructure, the Minister called for power assets to be formally designated and treated as Critical National Assets. He described vandalism, grid sabotage and energy theft as economic warfare against ordinary Nigerian households.
He said securing existing assets must proceed alongside efforts to optimise their output, with transmission weak points, spinning reserves and priority substation relays all being actively addressed to improve near-term grid reliability.
Turning to metering and tariffs, Tegbe argued that estimated billing had for too long penalised poor Nigerians while masking systemic losses.
He said his ministry was working with stakeholders to accelerate metering rollout and reduce Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection ATC&C losses, while also developing a sustainable tariff transition pathway designed to shield the most vulnerable consumers from cost shocks and give investors the long-term predictability needed for serious capital commitment.
On market governance, the Minister stressed that tariff reform could only hold if payment compliance was enforced across the board.