Nigeria’s Power Recovery, a Shared Responsibility

Vincent Ozoude

Every Nigerian household and business know the cost of unreliable power: blackouts at homes, idle industrial machines in production factories, rising diesel bills, and failing businesses and industries. Those of us who generate, transmit, distribute and regulate electricity feel that weight personally and owe the public candour about the challenge and, more importantly, clarity on the way forward.

Moments like this tempt a sector into finger-pointing. I would rather we treat them as a mirror. Nigeria’s electricity supply is a chain that runs from the gas well for a gas-fired plant to the meter: gas production and transport, generation, transmission, distribution and, finally, payment. When any link is strained, the whole system feels it. When power plants go quiet, it is rarely for lack of Generation from the gas turbines or skilled engineers. More often, they are constrained by gas unavailability, evacuation limitations in the electricity market, where market liquidity is still being restored.

That diagnosis is good news, because it tells us exactly where the solutions lie, and many are already in motion.

The government has taken bold steps that deserve recognition. The Electricity Act 2023 has opened the market and empowered states. The regulator continues to move the industry forward with some orders. The federal government’s commitment to settle verified legacy debts owed to generation companies and gas suppliers is a significant signal of intent, and the Nigerian Independent System Operator now manages the grid with greater transparency.

The Honourable Minister of Power has set a clear bar: Nigerians must feel the improvement. We share that goal, and our duty as private operators is to meet government halfway with discipline, investment and innovation.

At Transafam Power Limited, that conviction has defined our journey. When Transcorp Group acquired the Power Generation assets located in Afam-Okoloma, Rivers State, a 966MW installed capacity plant that was delivering less than 10% of this installed capacity, only a fraction of its capability. Many had written the plant off as one more stranded asset.

We saw something different: national infrastructure that could be restored by Nigerian capital and Nigerian expertise. With patient investment, we rehabilitated dormant units and steadily grew our available capacity. When gas constraints at one location threatened output, we did not accept idle capacity; we relocated turbines closer to available gas. That is our instinct in every disruption: find a way to keep generating.

Today, Transafam Power stands among the top generation assets in the country. Together with our sister company, Transcorp Power Plc, Ughelli, we account for about 20% of Nigeria’s installed capacity, making the Transcorp Group one of the most important private contributors to the national grid. That position is not a privilege; it is a responsibility. When our units are available, millions of Nigerians feel the difference, and we hold ourselves accountable to that standard every single day.

Innovation has been central to how we run the plant. We are deepening condition-based and predictive maintenance so that our units are ready the moment gas flows, strengthening real-time monitoring of plant performance, and tightening the discipline of our operations so that every available megawatt is protected. We treat reliability as an engineering culture, not a slogan: rigorous safety standards, careful stewardship of our equipment, and decisions grounded in data.

Our greatest investment, however, is in people. The engineers and technicians who run our plants in Transafam today and at Ughelli are Nigerians, many of them young professionals whose skills we are deliberately building for the long term. We are also committed to our host communities in Rivers and Delta States, because a power plant thrives only when the people around it share in its progress.

Three practical priorities would accelerate the recovery of electricity. First, let us manage gas-to-power as one value chain. Making adequate dedicated gas available with firm gas supply agreements backed by credible payment assurance, alongside closer coordination of upstream investment and maintenance within the gas sector, would curtail gas unavailability. Continued investment in gas processing and transport pipeline infrastructure to gas-fired power plants will ensure that Nigeria’s abundant gas reserves translate into electricity for homes and industries.

Second, let us sustain market liquidity. Consistent implementation of the debt settlement programme, together with prompt payment of monthly invoices across the value chain, will allow generating companies to pay gas suppliers, maintain their machines and attract fresh capital. A market that settles its obligations predictably is a market investor will fund.

Third, evacuation limitations should be tackled head-on. Weak transmission and distribution infrastructure should be upgraded, revamped and new infrastructure built to cater for the growing population and demand.

Let us deepen collaboration. A standing platform where generation companies, gas suppliers, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the system operator and the regulator review supply risks ahead of time would help the industry anticipate shocks rather than react to them. Transafam is ready to contribute its operational experience to such an effort.

Power is where the private sector’s commitment to Nigeria is tested most, and where its rewards are most visible. Every megawatt restored is a hospital or clinic that keeps its equipment and lights on, a student who reads after dark, a small- to medium-scale business and industrial company that improves production and hires more hands through job creation, a country growing in GDP and a community with fast growth in urban and rural development.

Nigeria’s power recovery is not the task of government alone, nor of any single company. It is a shared responsibility. Transafam Power stands ready as a dependable partner in that work: a strong, Nigerian-run generation company with the capacity, the people and the resolve to keep the lights on, committed to improving lives and transforming Africa, one megawatt at a time.

Engr Ozoude writes from Afam, Rivers State. He is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Transafam Power Limited, one of the power subsidiaries of Transnational Corporation Plc, Africa’s leading listed conglomerate with strategic investments in power, hospitality and energy.