Nigeria’s fragile electricity grid took centre stage at the Senate on Wednesday as lawmakers grilled Minister-designate for Power, Joseph Tegbe, over recurring national grid collapses and the country’s inability to translate installed generation capacity into stable electricity supply.
The Senate later confirmed Tegbe as Minister of Power alongside Sola Enikanolaiye as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs following their screening at plenary.
During the session, senators raised concerns over the persistent instability of the national grid, noting that despite Nigeria’s installed generation capacity exceeding 13,000 megawatts, actual power delivery rarely rises above 4,500MW.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) questioned why the grid frequently collapses whenever supply approaches 5,000MW, describing the situation as evidence of deep structural weaknesses in the transmission system.
The concerns come amid repeated nationwide blackouts that have continued to undermine industrial productivity, business operations and public confidence in the power sector.
Responding to lawmakers, Tegbe admitted that the country’s electricity crisis goes beyond power generation, identifying weak transmission infrastructure, unstable frequency control, gas supply shortages and poor coordination across the electricity value chain as major contributors to grid failures.
He described the recurring collapses as symptoms of an outdated and overstretched system requiring urgent technical and institutional reforms.
“My promise to Nigeria and to this chamber is that Nigerians will see visible improvement in the sector,” Tegbe told lawmakers, projecting that measurable progress could emerge within three to six months.
The minister-designate pledged to conduct independent diagnostics across the sector while strengthening collaboration among the Ministry of Power, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and other stakeholders.
According to him, stabilising the national grid would require infrastructure modernisation, stronger accountability frameworks and reforms in the commercial structure of the industry.
He also promised to address transmission bottlenecks and improve operational efficiency across the sector, while supporting investments in mini-grids, renewable energy and state-level electricity projects under the Electricity Act.
Lawmakers, however, warned that vested interests benefiting from the sector’s inefficiencies—including generator importers and poorly performing distribution companies—could frustrate reform efforts.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, urged Tegbe to avoid bureaucratic delays and focus on long-term solutions capable of ending the cycle of grid collapses and unreliable electricity supply.
Akpabio stressed that stable power remains critical to Nigeria’s industrialisation agenda, economic competitiveness and national security.
He also criticised estimated billing practices and exploitative service charges by electricity providers, insisting that Nigerian consumers deserve fairer treatment.
The repeated collapse of the national grid has remained one of the most visible indicators of the deep-seated challenges facing Nigeria’s electricity sector, despite years of reforms, privatisation and substantial public investment.
