Although Nigeria is unable to provide regular electricity for its citizens, its Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said the country hopes to generate electricity for the entire West African region in the coming years.
Speaking on Tuesday at the West Africa Energy Cooperation Summit hosted by Energy Net, in Ghana, the minister said regional energy security is tied to Nigeria’s success, noting that the country holds the largest gas reserves in the region and must play a central role in sustaining the West African power market.
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The minister acknowledged Nigeria’s electricity challenges, saying, “If Nigeria can be fixed, the entire West African region can be fixed.”
“Achieving energy security requires not only increased supply but universal access for West African citizens,” he added.
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PREMIUM TIMES reports that the energy summit brought together government officials, innovators, policymakers, and industry leaders to discuss building a sustainable energy future for West Africa and the continent.
The minister emphasised the need for seamless transmission lines to enable cross-border electricity flow from Nigeria to ECOWAS member states.
“The name of the game must now be cooperation, collaboration, and partnership. In this regard, Nigeria is committed to its responsibility within the West African energy space. We have a major role to play. This responsibility has led us, first of all, to fix our domestic supply and ensure that we meet the expectations placed on us in West Africa,” Mr Adelabu said.
“Beyond Nigeria’s size and population of over 200 million people, we are also privileged to have huge deposits of natural gas that can generate power for the entire West African region.”
Listing two major pathways for expanding regional electricity supply, Mr Adelabu said the first is the construction of the West African Gas Pipeline.
He said the pipeline is currently in Ghana and is extending to Morocco in North Africa, with its final destination being Europe, due to energy supply contracts Nigeria has with some European countries.
He added that some European partners are willing to collaborate on financing the pipeline’s construction.
“The second option is to ensure seamless power transmission from Nigeria across all the countries of West Africa from Area 1, which includes Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and the Niger Republic, to Areas 2 and 3, which include the remaining countries of the subregion,” the minister said.
He praised recent progress by the West African Power Pool, noting that all 15 regional transmission lines were synchronised for the first time for more than four hours, an improvement from the previous record of seven minutes in 2007.
“We are excited by the recent activities of the West African Power Pool, which had been dormant for some time. We successfully synchronised the transmission lines across all 15 West African countries recently. For over four hours, the transmission remained stable with no risk of collapse, achieving synchronisation across the entire region for the first time. The last attempt, in 2007, lasted only seven minutes before the system collapsed. Eighteen years later, we sustained it for over four hours.”
“In the coming months, we will move to the second level of testing, lasting three to four days. Once that is achieved, we can transition to permanent synchronization of transmission lines in West Africa. This will allow us to leverage the comparative advantages of countries like Nigeria and Ghana in power generation and transmit electricity efficiently across the region at the lowest cost, ensuring reliable access for all West Africans,” Mr Adelabu said.
Nigeria’s domestic reforms
The power minister said reforms in Nigeria’s power sector since privatisation in 2013 have resulted in improved distribution infrastructure, reduced metering gaps and better system liquidity. However, he noted that more work is needed to build a power industry capable of supporting industrial growth at home and supplying energy across the region.
“We are not yet where we aim to be. Much remains to be done. But the transformation is ongoing, and we will not stop until we achieve a power sector capable of driving full industrialisation in Nigeria and supporting the broader West African region.
“Once this is achieved, the entire West African subregion will be assured of energy security, reliable energy supply, and progress toward universal access,” he said.
Earlier, the minister disclosed that Nigeria’s installed generation capacity had increased from 13,000 MW to over 14,000 MW within two years, powered mainly by hydro and thermal plants, with plans to add large-scale solar generation, particularly in the north.
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“Nigeria now has excess generation capacity, producing only about 6,000 megawatts while capable of generating an additional 8,000 megawatts.”
He said much of that surplus remains stranded, even as the country exports only about 600 megawatts to Togo, Niger and the Benin Republic.
Mr Adelabu said the country’s vast solar potential could further strengthen energy security, complementing thermal plants concentrated in the Niger Delta and hydropower facilities in the North-central zone.
The minister described the transmission segment as historically weak, burdened by inefficiencies and ageing infrastructure across Nigeria’s 923,000-square-kilometre landmass.
Mr Adelabu also noted that the Transmission Company of Nigeria had been unbundled into two entities, the Transmission Service Provider and the Nigerian Independent System Operator, to improve efficiency.
These reforms, he said, have reduced grid collapses from “more than a dozen last year to only one so far this year, which was restored within two hours.”
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