KEY POINTS

• Nigeria’s €2.3 billion Presidential Power Initiative closed without hitting its 7,000MW, 11,000MW, or 25,000MW targets, leaving the country still stuck below 5,000MW of actual generation.
• Businesses continue to hemorrhage money on diesel generators while manufacturers lose competitiveness, with experts warning that Nigeria cannot industrialize without reliable grid power.
• President Tinubu launched a new Grid Assets Management Company, GAMCO, but power advocates warn it risks overlapping with existing agencies and repeating old failures.

The plan was ambitious, the money was real, and the deadline has now passed. Nigeria’s Presidential Power Initiative, the flagship electricity project backed by €2.3 billion and a partnership with German engineering giant Siemens, has officially collapsed without delivering anywhere near what was promised.

The project, which ran from 2020 through 2025, set out a phased roadmap to lift the country’s power output to 7,000 megawatts by 2021, 11,000 megawatts by 2023, and a transformative 25,000 megawatts by the end of last year. None of those targets were met. Not one.

Data from the Nigerian Independent System Operator shows the country is still generating roughly 5,000 megawatts, transmitting just over 4,000 megawatts, and delivering approximately 3,000 megawatts of actual electricity to a population of more than 200 million people. At the current exchange rate, €2.3 billion translates to around 3.7 trillion naira.

A failure hiding behind available capacity

Industry operators say the gap between what exists on paper and what reaches consumers tells the real story.

Nigeria’s installed generation capacity is often quoted above 12,000 megawatts, a number that looks almost reassuring until you understand that most of it is unavailable.

Gas shortages, grid instability, and crumbling distribution infrastructure conspire to keep that number theoretical.

Yemi Oke, a professor of energy law at the University of Lagos, did not sugarcoat the structural rot.

“The weakest link has always been distribution,” Oke said. “That is the segment that interfaces directly with consumers.

It is where you have metering gaps, estimated billing, energy theft, bypasses, tariff collection challenges and huge commercial losses.”

He said the transmission segment is in equally bad shape. Grid collapses are frequent. High-voltage lines get vandalized. Infrastructure under the Transmission Company of Nigeria is, in many parts, obsolete.

“Nigeria’s transmission capacity has struggled around 5,000 megawatts,” he said. “Attempts to push it higher often result in instability.”

His prescription is a departure from the conventional wisdom that has governed Nigeria’s power sector thinking.

Rather than continuing to generate electricity in one corner of the country and transmit it across vast distances, Oke argues the future lies in decentralized systems, mini-grids, embedded generation, and regional grids.

What it cost the economy

Chinyere Almona, director general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, framed the collapse in terms that go beyond kilowatts and transmission corridors.

“The missed targets have imposed substantial costs on the Nigerian economy,” she said. Businesses, particularly those in manufacturing and services, have continued pouring money into diesel and petrol generators just to keep the lights on.

Production costs climb. Competitiveness erodes. Profit margins shrink. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which employ the largest share of Nigerian workers, suffer the worst of it.

“Unreliable electricity discourages foreign direct investment,” Almona added, noting that investors consistently prioritize economies where energy supply is predictable and affordable.

She also raised the broader geopolitical context weighing on Nigeria right now. Disruptions in the Middle East, including shipping complications around the Strait of Hormuz, are already pushing energy prices higher globally. Nigeria, with its own energy fragility, will feel that pressure acutely.

Almona said bridging the power gap demands more than good intentions. It requires targeted investment in grid expansion, modernization, and system stability, alongside reliable gas-to-power infrastructure, regulatory reforms, and a serious push toward decentralized and off-grid energy solutions, particularly in industrial clusters and underserved communities.

What the project’s backers are saying now

FGN Power, the government entity that drove the initiative, acknowledged the drawn-out pre-implementation phase but stopped short of calling the project a failure.

In a statement, the agency pointed to extensive negotiations and due diligence as reasons the timeline stretched, and said the financial arrangements were structured to deliver “optimal value for Nigeria.”

It outlined a fresh series of projects now moving forward. Phase 1 Batch 1 covers five new substations, including those at New Abeokuta, Ayede, and Onitsha, slated for completion by the end of 2026, with Sokoto and Offa following by the end of 2027.

Together, those five substations are expected to add 984 megawatts of wheeling capacity to the transmission network.

Contracts for Phase 1 Batch 2, covering 12 substations, are expected to be signed in May 2026, with a delivery target of 2028.

GAMCO and a new committee

President Bola Tinubu has moved separately. Last weekend, he constituted an 11-member committee to incorporate the planned Grid Assets Management Company, known as GAMCO, following Federal Executive Council approval.

The company is intended to address stranded power, grid management, and transmission bottlenecks, with a pilot phase focused on three power plants: Omotosho, Olorunsogo, and Ihovbor.

Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to the president, who inaugurated the committee, described GAMCO as one of the “revolutionary steps” taken by the Tinubu administration.

The committee is tasked with reviewing existing laws, regulations, and institutional frameworks across the electricity value chain, and will examine how GAMCO’s proposed mandate interfaces with existing sector institutions.

Gbajabiamila said GAMCO intends to develop a high-capacity transmission corridor along the Benin-Lagos axis, which he described as a way to “translate underperforming national assets into reliably delivered megawatts.”

Not everyone is convinced the structure is coherent.

Adetayo Adegbemle, executive director of PowerUp Nigeria, a power advocacy group, raised pointed questions about the overlap between GAMCO and what remains of the Presidential Power Initiative.

“What is happening with the Presidential Power Initiative or FGN Power? Isn’t there an overlap of functions with GAMCO?” he said.

“What is the end goal of GAMCO? How will GAMCO interface with other stakeholders?”

Adegbemle also questioned whether the committee is advisory or executive in nature, and where the Nigeria Integrated Energy Plan fits into the picture.

“From all indications, the President does not appear to trust existing institutions to handle this assignment,” he said.

“There is need to ensure that role conflicts and possible overlaps are resolved as soon as possible.”

A sector that can’t afford more missed targets

The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise was blunt about what chronic power failure means at a macro level.

“Productivity and industrialisation are strongly correlated with the power situation in any country,” the group said in a statement.

“No matter how well we perform in other areas, if we are still grappling with power problems, economic growth and job creation will remain subdued.”

The group singled out grid power as the backbone of large-scale industrialization, pushing back on the idea that renewable energy alone can substitute.

It also raised the uncomfortable question of how Nigeria expects to compete under the African Continental Free Trade Area when manufacturing capacity is gutted by energy insecurity.

There are governance concerns too. The Transmission Company of Nigeria remains government-owned, and the Centre raised questions about whether that ownership structure should be revisited in order to create a more efficient, professionally managed ecosystem.

Nigeria has spent two decades promising that its power sector is on the verge of a breakthrough. After €2.3 billion and another round of missed deadlines, that promise is wearing thin.