Shettima’s cop-out on electricity

A search through Google reveals that “a cop-out is an informal slang term for dodging responsibility, breaking a promise, or taking the easy way out to avoid something difficult or uncomfortable,” especially if one had pledged to do that same thing.

In December 2022, a presidential candidate named Bola Tinubu told the Nigerian electorate, “If I don’t give you constant electricity for four years, don’t vote for me when I come back for a second term. By all means necessary, you must have electricity, and you must not pay for estimated bills anymore. Don’t vote for me if I don’t give you steady power supply.”

A little less than three months to the January 19, 2027 presidential election that may get him re-elected, President Tinubu is yet to turn the regular electricity supply needle appreciably in favour of the electorate of Nigeria that elected him for the first term that is about to be concluded.

Instead, his government took more than N4.4tn in bonds to settle legacy debts the underperforming Transmission Company of Nigeria (which owns and operates the national power grid) owed to electricity generating companies and gas suppliers.

Indeed, the national power grid collapsed at least three times in 2026 alone: on January 23, when electricity generation dropped to zero megawatts; January 27, when it plunged to 39 megawatts; and October 19, when the best efforts generated only 476.70 megawatts.

If it provides any significant relief to the government that failed to live up to its promise, the poor performance of 2026 is better than that of 2025, when the national grid collapsed four times, on February 12, March 7, September 10 and December 29.

In addition to the President’s inability to deliver regular power supply to citizens, some citizens, who do not have what Nigerians refer to as “long leg”, are still paying estimated electricity bills despite the claim by the government that more pre-paid meters have been released into the market.

And, by the way, Nigerians, especially those living in the Band A market segment, are paying through their noses for the 22 hours of electricity promised by former Minister of Power, Adebayo “Penkelemesi” Adelabu, but which neither he nor his successor, Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe, has been able to deliver.

After he and his principal failed to provide regular electricity for Nigerians, Vice President Kashim Shettima found a cop-out in the Electricity Act 2023 that transferred the regulation, generation, transmission and distribution of electricity from the Federal Exclusive Legislative List of the Nigerian Constitution to its Concurrent Legislative List.

And there is no doubt that the constitutional amendment is a game changer. It may even be the silver bullet that will zing through the thicket of Nigeria’s “bureaucratic corruption” to deliver regular electricity supply to Nigerian citizens.

VP Shettima is urging state governments to take advantage of this “alternative route” by taking the initiative away from the lumbering, or slumbering(?), Federal Government leviathan that apparently has the feet of clay in the matter of meeting a promise that was made, shall one say, in the heat of the moment.

Regular supply of electricity is key to the rapid economic development and industrialization of Nigeria, and it is better to go at it from the bottom-up, as VP Shettima appears to have recognised, and not from top-to-bottom approach that is written all over the old order template that assigned electricity exclusively to the Federal Government.

As much as critics of this government may argue that VP Shettima is admitting failure on behalf of his principal, it is okay to agree that the constitutional amendment has shared responsibility for delivering a stable supply of electricity to Nigerian citizens between the President and the state Governors.

Evidence that this is truly the way out of Nigeria’s darkness is in the albeit modest progress recorded by the government of Abia State in partnership with Prof. Barth Nnaji’s $800m, 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant, which is a part of the Aba Integrated Power Project.

The Geometric Power Plant is designed to deliver 24-hour electricity, but inconsistent gas supply has caused interruptions in January, June, August and September 2026. Yet is supplies regular electricity to 9 out of the 17 local governments in Abia State.

Abia State’s neighbour, Imo State and the Madkur Group, its Egyptian partner on the Orashi electricity project, are on the way to generate, transmit and distribute the state’s domestic electricity needs hopefully by January 2027.

The efforts of Abia and Imo states should inspire other state governors to establish the electricity infrastructure that will enable their states to have rapid economic development and increase their prospects of significantly raising their internally generated revenue from taxation and tariffs.

Early in 2026, the Lagos State Government too announced a plan to raise electricity supply for the more than 20 million people living in the state from the current 1,000 megawatts to 3,000 megawatts per day, by sourcing electricity from the (epileptic) national grid and a mix of other sources.

These other sources include independent power projects that the government described as energy hubs; power barges, like the Enron power barges whose use was scuttled by the Federal Government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo; energy traders; and others.

Other state governments need to take a cue from Abia and Imo states, and launch their own electricity platforms. But it is important for them to adopt the template that integrates the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, which is currently in silos, under one roof.

The current national structural template, which separates electricity generation, transmission and distribution into three standalones, is not good enough. It makes it impossible to know who to hold responsible for failure to deliver regular electricity to the people.

It might also be a lot better if states within the same geopolitical zones, like the Southwest, for instance, join to form one market and license two or three electricity companies that will provide services throughout the region. This model comes with two advantages.

The first is the large-scale production that covers a market that is bigger than each state, and therefore reduces unit production costs and delivers the service at relatively lower tariffs. The second advantage is that more than one electricity company within a single market will stimulate competition and give customers the ability to make a choice between suppliers.

By the way, no state government can complain that it doesn’t have the money to finance necessary electricity infrastructure nowadays. None. Not after the removal of the petrol subsidy that has pumped so much money into their exchequers. Even state governors openly admit that the removal of the subsidy has made their exchequers very liquid.

The Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited can no longer claim that it cannot remit money into the Federation Accounts with the excuse that it is diverting its revenues to pay for subsidy on behalf of the Federal Government.

Instead of building airports that only government officials and the jet set can use, state governors should put the excess funds into electricity infrastructure that will form the enabling environment for willing private investors in electricity.

In the cop-out of Vee Pee Shettima lies a pathway to regular electricity delivery.

  X@lekansote1, lekansote.com