By Saheed Ibrahim
Claim: Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, stated that the Federal Government would increase electricity generation to 6,000 megawatts (MW) by December 2024.
Full Text
For many years, Nigeria has struggled with an unreliable power supply. This has significantly hampered industrial growth, economic activities, and quality of life for millions of Nigerians.
The country’s power generation struggles between 4,000MW and 4,900MW from 19 power generation plants, serving a population of over 200 million people.
Nigeria has also recorded incessant power grid collapse. Citizens and businesses heavily rely on alternative energy sources like electricity generators and solar energy.
Upon assuming office in May 2023, President Bola Tinubu vowed to tackle the power supply deficit, promising that electricity would become more accessible and affordable.
In April 2024, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to addressing the power supply crisis. During an oversight visit by the Senate Committee on Power, Adelabu said that the Federal Government had concluded plans to ramp up power generation to a target of 6,000MW by the end of 2024.
The Minister, on several occasions, reiterated the determination of his ministry to ensure the 6,000MW target is met by December 2024. Reports on the 6000MW promise can be found here, here and here.
This fact-check was conducted to verify if Nigeria truly generated 6000MW of electricity by December 2024, as promised by the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu.
Verification
We retrieved the operational reports from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) website. NESO is a semi-autonomous sector under the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The operational report for December 29, 2024, showed that the peak generation was 5229MW on December 28. Peak power generation for December 27 was 5229.28MW. NESO operational reports indicated that the “All Time Peak Generation Ever Attained” was 5801.6MW, below 6000MW.
The daily operational reports of power generation can be found on NESO’s website here.
The failure to meet the 6,000MW target by December was also confirmed by the Minister of Power, Adelabu in an interview with PUNCH.
Why We Failed – Minister of Power
Explaining why the country failed to generate the 6,000MW target, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, attributed the failure to vandalism targeting critical power transmission equipment.
According to PUNCH, Adelabu, through his Special Adviser on Strategic Communication and Media Relations, Bolaji Tunji, “explained that the government had implemented measures to reach the milestone and was on track until multiple incidents of vandalism to electricity towers disrupted the plan.”
Nigeria experienced multiple national grid collapses in 2024. The national grid was reported to have collapsed 12 times in 2024, with the 12th occurrence on December 11. As reported by Premium Times, The Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) said that Nigeria had recorded 162 cases of grid collapse from 2013 to October 2024.
According to DailyTrust, the Minister had in October “accused some electricity distribution companies (DisCos) of deliberately refusing to take up more power supply from TCN, stagnating power generation that has not risen above the 5105MW since July”.
Conclusion
The promise of the Federal Government through the Ministry of Power that Nigeria would generate 6000 megawatts of electricity did not materialise. Reports from NESO showed that Nigeria’s electricity generation was below the 6000MW target in 2024, with the “All Time Peak Generation Ever Attained” being 5801.6MW. The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu also confirmed that the 6000MW was not met, attributing the failure to vandalism.