Is Joseph Tegbe fixing the grid or merely managing the darkness?

Dr Olarinre Salako says Power Minister Joseph Tegbe must move beyond administrative fixes and pursue deep structural reforms to address Nigeria’s electricity failures….He argues that Nigeria’s biggest power challenge is not just generation but a fragile, centralised national grid that remains a single point of failure.

By Olarinre Salako, PHD

When Adebayo Adelabu was appointed Nigeria’s Minister of Power, I publicly congratulated him and offered advice to a fellow indigene of Oyo State. I had intended to do the same for his successor, Joseph Tegbe, who now represents Oyo State in President Tinubu’s cabinet. That intention was interrupted. My attention shifted to unabated insecurity following the beheading of mathematics teacher Mr. Michael Oyedokun and the continued abduction of schoolchildren and teachers by Northern Boko Haram terrorists at Ahoro Esiele, Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.

When I eventually turned to the new minister, I encountered an interesting political story. His late father reportedly owned a bookshop in my home town of Oyo, where Tegbe also grew up. His emergence revived an old question in Nigerian federalism: when does long-term residency become political belonging in a society where ancestry remains politically significant in competition for limited political space?

When the late Governor Ajimobi sought to make Tegbe the APC governorship candidate, opposition emerged despite being constitutionally eligible through residence. Politicians native to Oyo State reportedly argued that Tegbe remained an Itsekiri from Delta State. Adelabu became the party’s candidate. A similar debate reportedly resurfaced years later when Governor Makinde considered Tegbe for the PDP Oyo Central Senatorial District before he contested the Oyo South seat, which he lost to Sharafadeen Alli. He has served as Mogaji of Tegbe Compound in Ibadan for about a decade without progressing to Jagun in the Olubadan succession line. While I would welcome Tegbe’s perspective on this matter, the debate about ancestry, residency and political belonging in a federal republic is an important conversation for another day.

Today, however, the focus is on the electricity system. The question is not where Tegbe comes from, but whether the electricity system he now leads is being reformed at the level its structural failures demand.

The Case for Unbundling the National Grid

Tegbe inherited a sector weakened by decades of decay and repeated grid collapses. He resisted making grand promises, cautioning that there was no “magic wand” for immediate 24-hour electricity. As he put it, “The challenges that have kept this sector below its potential were decades in the making. They will not be fully reversed in weeks or months.” The question is whether his reforms match that diagnosis.

His early achievements, though technically sound, remain localized and administrative. They have yet to address Nigeria’s greatest electricity bottleneck: the centralized and fragile national grid. The Ministry’s examples illustrate this distinction. They emphasize fixing components rather than redesigning the system. The Ministry cited interventions such as the 24-hour restoration of the Katampe feeder station and the revival of a Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) facility that had sat dormant for three years. While these quick wins are useful, they constitute firefighting rather than systemic overhaul. The singly governed national grid remains a single point of failure, demonstrating that Nigeria’s greatest vulnerability lies less in generation than in transmission architecture.

To transform the sector, he must move beyond repairs. Microgrids and isolated state-level projects are insufficient; Nigeria needs regional unbundling of its primary transmission network. A structural solution would involve breaking the national grid into three distinct, interconnected regional units: East, Central, and West. Each regional grid should be co-owned by the Federal Government and adjoining state governments, but managed by independent, private transmission companies. This structure would localize disruptions, encourage regional capital injection, and mirror the global shift toward interconnected regional transmission systems rather than dependence on one national control structure.

Bureaucracy versus Blueprints: Discos’ Debts and Recapitalization

Tegbe’s institutional coordination has been largely bureaucratic. His meetings with the heads of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), NERC, and the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to demand “collaboration, governance, and accountability” represent a sensible first step, but they remain strictly administrative. Nigeria’s problem is not a shortage of meetings but a shortage of enforceable implementation blueprints, execution discipline, institutional coherence, and measurable public accountability. His calls for synergy raise questions about existing executive mechanisms. Is he leveraging the Presidential Committee—the Gas Monitoring and Clearance Committee (GAMCO)—and the gas-to-power committees initiated by his predecessor, Adebayo Adelabu? If these bodies languish, “collaboration across the value chain” remains rhetoric. Tegbe must use them to resolve commercial and infrastructural friction between gas suppliers and thermal generators.

The Ministry has heavily emphasized NERC’s directive forcing Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to compensate Band A customers for supply shortfalls. While holding operators to service claims protects consumers, it ignores DisCos’ debts to the federation and the wider electricity value chain. The Federal Government has acknowledged the sector’s liquidity crisis, and recapitalization remains one pathway to financial viability. The Minister’s silence on DisCo recapitalization is a glaring omission because insolvency remains a primary barrier to infrastructure investment. In his handover notes, Adelabu explicitly recommended an aggressive recapitalization framework for the DisCos. Tegbe must champion this policy, forcing undercapitalized operators to dilute their equity in exchange for fresh, private capital or face asset restructuring. Without viable DisCos, service-level agreements and NERC penalties are cosmetic.

Smashing the Subsidy Trap via the Electricity Act

The Electricity Act 2023 offers Tegbe a reform opportunity. His announcement that roughly 20 states have enacted electricity laws, with 12 actively moving to absorb regulatory oversight from NERC, is an encouraging development.

However, regulatory decentralization does not automatically yield operational state networks. Nor can microgrids or uncoordinated renewables support heavy industrialization. The Act has decentralized regulation. The logical question is whether transmission architecture should evolve in the same direction. Preserving a centralized backbone may constrain the economic benefits the Act seeks to unlock.

True decentralization also requires electricity subsidy reform. Using the national grid to mask unviable tariffs enables corruption and commercial inefficiency. In a three-region interconnected grid system (East, Central, West), subsidies must undergo a paradigm shift. Federal, state and local governments should adopt targeted, card-based subsidies for vulnerable households, allowing operators to charge cost-reflective tariffs, attract private investment, and support commercial and industrial clusters.

The 2060 Illusion: Forgetting Siemens and Underestimating National Demand

Tegbe announced a 277GW generation target by 2060, over $2 billion in private investment commitments, 82 transformers adding 8,500MVA, and a $1.16 billion grid digitalization project. These figures require rigorous scrutiny. Before announcing aspirations for 2060, Nigerians deserve a progress report on existing commitments, especially the Siemens Presidential Power Initiative (PPI). Launched in 2018 under Late President Buhari to deliver 25,000MW by 2030, the project remains a binding commitment that President Tinubu’s administration is obligated to fulfill. How much has been completed? What milestones remain outstanding? What revised implementation timetable should Nigerians expect? Announcing ambitious long-term projections without a clear pathway, while the Siemens project faces delays, amounts to political distraction.

Furthermore, a target of 277GW by 2060 betrays a profound lack of ambition in the face of global technological shifts. If Nigeria must undergo an industrial revolution capable of powering a 24/7 economy, matching the massive rural electrification achievements of the American Roosevelt era of the 1930s, and supporting the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure, it cannot wait thirty-four years to achieve 300GW. In the electricity value chain, demand must drive supply. The Ministry should plan for demand growth within the next decade—not for electricity demand that comfortably sits beyond the lifespan of current administrations.

Tegbe’s early tenure has brought operational sobriety and localized competence. But managing a crisis is not solving it. By emphasizing repairs, coordination, and 2060 targets, the Minister risks managing the status quo rather than transforming it. To leave a legacy, he must pivot from administrative realism to structural redesign: unbundle the grid into interconnected systems jointly owned by states and private investors, recapitalize DisCos, execute Siemens PPI, and restructure subsidies. Only then will Nigeria’s power sector move from managed decline to one of industrial prosperity.

Dr Salako lives in Texas