Gas-to-power monitoring committee: Necessary bridge or institutional confession?

By Olarinre Salako

Published in The Nigerian Tribune: Systems and Society. April 13, 2026

On March 24, 2026, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, publicly apologised for Nigeria’s persistent power outages, acknowledging the hardship on businesses and citizens and promising visible improvements within two weeks. On April 9, he inaugurated the Gas-to-Power Monitoring Committee, bringing together stakeholders across the electricity value chain—the Ministry of Power, Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO), Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Association of Generation Companies (GenCos), Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Nigerian Gas Association, and consumer advocacy groups.

Only weeks earlier, President Tinubu had constituted an inter-ministerial committee to operationalise the Grid Asset Management Company (GAMCO), aimed at rehabilitating idle assets and attracting private capital. The proximity of both interventions raises a sharper question: why must new committees be created in quick succession to perform functions already assigned within the system?

A familiar pattern persists: crisis triggers apology, apology produces committees, committees generate reports—and, without structural reform, the system relapses. Over the past decade and a half, Nigeria’s power sector has cycled through multiple interventions—the Presidential Task Force on Power, the Power Sector Recovery Program, tariff resets, central bank liquidity facilities, and the Siemens-backed Presidential Power Initiative—yet core constraints persist: liquidity shortfalls, non-cost-reflective tariffs, and fragmented governance.

Adelabu described the new committee as “a decisive and strategic step,” tasking it with delivering actionable recommendations, particularly on securing payment for gas supplies and improving coordination.

The underlying problem, however, is neither new nor unclear. Gas-fired plants generate about 80 per cent of grid electricity, yet suppliers curtailed deliveries over roughly ₦3.3 trillion owed to gas suppliers, though some operators dispute the total. Generation fell to between 3,700 and 4,300 MW—far below installed capacity exceeding 13,625 MW.

On paper, the committee is sensible. In practice, it is an institutional confession: evidence of a system unable to coordinate its own mandates, revealing a deeper failure of design.

The Existing Agencies: Responsibility Versus Reality Gap

Nigeria already has agencies covering every link in the gas-to-power chain, yet outcomes remain unreliable.

On the power side, under the Electricity Act 2023 as amended in 2025, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) sets tariffs, enforces market rules, and licenses operators, with responsibility for cost-reflective pricing, subsidy frameworks, and payment discipline. NBET serves as the central off-taker, structuring PPAs with GenCos and managing the bulk payment chain. NISO dispatches generation and balances supply and demand, while TCN manages the high-voltage transmission backbone and grid stability. NDPHC owns and operates government generation assets and remains a significant gas consumer.

On the gas side, under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) oversees gas production, while the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) regulates pricing and pipeline infrastructure. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) remains the dominant supplier of gas to power plants.

In theory, this is a complete chain. In practice, responsibility is fragmented across ministries and regulators, with no single entity accountable for integrating the system and securing reliable gas supply for electricity.

When these institutional roles are measured against actual performance, the fracture becomes clear. Gas reserves are abundant, yet supply remains unreliable. Pricing structures are misaligned with power-sector economics, while pipelines are repeatedly disrupted by vandalism and delayed repairs. Payment flows are severely impaired: circular debt has grown to about ₦3.3 trillion owed to gas suppliers, with only roughly 35 per cent of invoices consistently settled. As a result, generation companies are forced to idle plants—sometimes up to 16 at a time—due to fuel shortages, while the system operator is constrained by the absence of gas rather than dispatch capability.

The consequences are system-wide. When gas supply fell to about 43 per cent of required volumes (692 mmscf/d against 1,630 mmscf/d) in early 2026, generation collapsed, plant availability dropped to around 30 per cent, and average available capacity fell to roughly 4,089 MW. The system could do little beyond shedding load.

These are not technical deficiencies but failures of accountability and incentives. Contracts fail at payment, coordination breaks down, and pipeline security lies beyond any single regulator.

An Ad-Hoc Committee for a Pyramid of Systemic Failure

The Gas-to-Power Monitoring Committee is not a new agency or regulator. It is an ad-hoc inter-agency task force created to compensate for institutional fragmentation. Its mandate—monitoring gas supply, accelerating pipeline repairs, facilitating debt settlements, and recommending sustainable payment mechanisms—covers core functions already assigned to existing agencies.

Minister Adelabu was explicit: “This Committee must function, not merely exist; the era of reactive, piecemeal responses must give way to systematic, well-coordinated interventions backed by data, clear timelines, and institutional accountability.” The committee is being asked to deliver financial structuring, market enforcement, and contract discipline—functions existing agencies were established to execute.

The crisis can be understood as a pyramid of failure. At the top are visible symptoms: gas shortages, blackouts, and generation persistently below 4,500 MW for a country of over 200 million people. Beneath this lie operational breakdowns—pipeline vandalism, infrastructure deficits, and coordination gaps. At the base are the true drivers: chronic liquidity failure (circular debt), misaligned incentives, non-cost-reflective tariffs, poorly designed subsidies, and fragmented governance across ministries.

The committee targets the middle layer through administrative coordination. It cannot resolve the base. The committee is effectively a rolling intervention platform, driven by reporting, milestones, and escalation. Historical precedent suggests such efforts remain effective for only three to six months—often long enough for the immediate political pressure from unmet electoral promises to ease.

The minister’s earlier commitments, including the two-week recovery promise, set a high bar. Real success would mean sustained gas flows and generation consistently above 5,000 MW by late 2026.

The Case for Structural Reform

Nigeria’s electricity system operates as a single value chain split across two ministries: gas policy sits within the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, while power policy is managed by the Ministry of Power. Yet roughly 80 per cent of electricity generation depends on gas.

This separation between gas policy and electricity governance makes coordination failures inevitable and committees routine workarounds.

A unified Ministry of Energy—integrating gas and power, as practised in countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—would align policy, reduce delays, and establish clear accountability across the value chain. Such a merger would remove a fundamental structural barrier that currently necessitates repeated ad-hoc interventions.

Beyond institutional alignment, a deeper redesign is required. As outlined in my forthcoming book, The Unfinished Nigerian Project, Nigeria should evolve from a single national grid into three interconnected, vertically integrated regional power systems. These semi-autonomous systems, linked through a national reliability layer, would strengthen accountability, improve efficiency and resilience, and enable better use of the country’s diverse energy mix. They would also reduce the impact of any single fuel shock by distributing generation more intelligently across gas, hydro, solar, and wind corridors. But this would require electricity market reform, recapitalisation, and subsidy redesign, none of which can be handled like fuel-subsidy removal or naira devaluation without sequencing. They demand deeper, more courageous statecraft.

Conclusion

The central problem in Nigeria’s electricity sector is the absence of a coordinating system capable of aligning fragmented agencies. When such agencies fail to deliver results, committees emerge—not as solutions, but as symptoms.

The Gas-to-Power Monitoring Committee is therefore more than a policy response; it is an institutional confession. It may deliver short-term stability—but it cannot resolve the deeper failures of incentives, investment, governance, and execution. Only structural reform—aligning governance, enforcing cost-reflective tariffs, redesigning targeted subsidies, ending the circular debt, and building more resilient grid architectures—will offer a long-term solution.

Until then, committees will continue to substitute for genuine structural redesign.