Over the past 24 years, Nigeria’s electricity sector has received at least $3.6bn in loans from the World Bank, yet millions of its citizens remain in persistent darkness. Many households and businesses have been crippled due to grid collapse, corruption, poor generation, distribution, and transmission, and insufficient maintenance.

Data from the World Bank, as reported by Statisense, revealed that power projects between 2001 and 2024 included successive interventions targeting transmission upgrades, sector reforms, rural electrification, renewable energy expansion, and recovery programmes aimed at stabilising the country’s troubled electricity industry.

Some of the projects include the $100m Transmission Development Project introduced in 2001, the $172m National Energy Development Project in 2005, and the $400m Nigeria Electricity and Gas Improvement Project launched in 2009.

Others are the $145m Nigeria Power Sector Guarantees Project in 2014, the $486m Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project in 2018, the $350m Nigeria Electrification Project also in 2018, the $750m Power Sector Recovery Programme approved in 2020, the $750m Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up programme introduced in 2023, and the $500m Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria project launched in 2024.

Despite these multi-billion-dollar interventions, Nigeria’s electricity supply remains comatose.

A Professor of Energy at the University of Lagos, Dayo Ayoade, blamed corruption and poor governance for the country’s electricity woes.

He said, “Until the power sector is put right, the economy will continue to suffer, Nigerians will continue to suffer, and there is no way out of this. Self-generation doesn’t work because it’s inefficient.

“The kind of resources you need to generate power, like gas, are out of the hands of private individuals or companies. So, it is very important that the government takes the lead.”

“One of the reasons the sector is not working is poor governance. Billions of dollars were spent on power in the past with no appreciable electricity. We can’t continue down that way. There are too many loopholes and leakages. We have to address this,” he added.