Nigeria’s wobbling electricity transmission infrastructure, which is fuelling the persistent collapse of the grid network and throwing the country into darkness, requires urgent reforms to unbundle the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

While the Federal Government and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) are struggling to implement reforms in the agency by dividing it into Nigerian Independent System Operator, Transmission Service Provider, Market Operator, and other related entities to address commercial and system coordination, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) requires approximately N2.8 trillion to execute 149 projects aimed at improving electricity transmission across the country.

This comes as stakeholders have decried mismanagement of resources being invested in the transmission network in the last 11 years which did not lead to significant improvements in wheeling capacity.

Nigeria had borrowed over $7.5 billion from the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), Japan, France Development Agency and other financiers to improve the weak wheeling capacity of the transmission network and the grid but the capacity of the grid remained at about 4,500 megawatts.

In May last year, NERC ordered the establishment of an Independent System Operator (ISO) to take over the market and system operations functions of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). The order which had instructed the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to incorporate the new company no later than 31st May 2024 is yet to take off.

Some stakeholders insisted that gross management that reflects the pre-privatisation practices, widespread corruption, political considerations, non-alignment of projects, and the inability of the DisCos to increase their off-taking capacity, among other factors, have made the kind-heartedness of the lenders meaningless and government efforts futile.

With the development, stakeholders noted that the prevailing challenges with grid collapses and dilapidated equipment would persist in the power sector. The power sector’s challenges have had far-reaching implications for economic development, with businesses and households bearing the brunt of frequent outages. Stakeholders stress the need for increased funding, private sector involvement, and robust reforms to strengthen the grid and reduce the frequent collapses.

A retired TCN expert, speaking anonymously, expressed concern over the state of the country’s power infrastructure, arguing that TCN’s management and poor strategy are at the core of the persistent challenges that are confronting the power sector.

The former TCN official described the company as a ‘major bottleneck’ and insisted that attributing the country’s power failures solely to vandalism overlooks deeper structural problems.

According to him, TCN’s weak network and inadequate maintenance are fundamental issues requiring urgent attention, adding that the agency is investing in projects that are not a priority.

“One corridor collapsing should not plunge the north into darkness,” he argued, emphasising that the grid’s fragility reflects broader systemic failures rather than mere security lapses. “What you are seeing is a systemic collapse, not just a tower collapse,” he added, highlighting the need for serious reforms within TCN.

Executive Director of PowerUp Initiatives, Adetayo Adegbemle, told The Guardian that allocating funds alone is insufficient without proper checks and balances.
He noted that he expects the National Assembly, as the supervisory body, to request status reports on all projects from previous years before approving additional funding for the following year.

He mentioned that a forensic audit of projects over the past decade is necessary to assess the resource planning from TCN and determine how resources have been allocated.

Adegbemle urged the Federal Government to establish an agency or ministry dedicated to monitoring projects and their implementation, emphasizing the need to integrate check and balance mechanisms into the system.

“For me, it is not just about the figures budgeted, but we also need to do a forensic audit of the TCN and Ministry of Power projects, at least in the last year. So much has been spent in the last decade, but we are not seeing a positive result/effect on the national grid, as the wheeling capacity is neither improving, nor have we seen a reduction in grid collapses, or even basic grid infrastructure like the SCADA system,” he said.

The President of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo, stated that the N270 billion budget proposal in the 2025 final appropriation is a scratch on the surface and a drop in the ocean, ensuring that it is insufficient and inconsequential.

Olubiyo emphasised that TCN’s indebtedness to local contractors and indigenous metre suppliers is about N500 billion, pointing out that these huge debts are for projects that were successfully executed and delivered to the transmission company over six years ago. However, payments to individual indigenous contractors have remained elusive.

He stated that the N271 billion allocated out of the N2.9 trillion budget projection represents less than 10 per cent of the funding milestones required for the project, adding, “This suggests that critical projects are being handled with kid’s gloves and approached as a child’s play.

“In the immediate, medium and long term, the 149 critical Transmission Infrastructure Network Improvement Projects may suffer adversely from inadequate funding and may remain a mirage or abandoned projects. Also, the system collapses may remain unabated for a very long time to come as long as the Nigerian Government as represented by relevant institutions continues to pay lip services to investments in the Power Sector.”

He urged the Federal Government to wrap up the unbundling process of TCN into the Nigerian Independent System Operator, Transmission Service Provider, Market Operator, and other related entities to address the much-needed reforms in commercial operations and system coordination.

Electricity market analyst, Lanre Elatuyi, told The Guardian that while liquidity remains a major issue in the sector, the budget allocated for the sector this year will not lead to the anticipated improvements that Nigerians are hoping for. He added that the sector is in dire need of clear direction and a policy that ought to have been developed by the Ministry of Power.

“Budgetary allocation of any amount of Naira is not the silver bullet to the myriads of problems the power sector is confronting. Some projects have not been completed in many years, and there are debts in the market that exceed the over two trillion naira that has been proposed,” he said.