The Rural Electrification Agency has urged government institutions, state governments, private companies and development partners to work more closely to speed up electricity access across Nigeria.
The agency said better coordination would help reduce overlapping projects, improve the use of available funding and ensure electricity interventions reach communities that need them.
The Managing Director of the REA, Abubakar Aliyu, made the call in Abuja during the relaunch of the Off-Grid Stakeholder Coordination and Partnership Forum.
Aliyu said a review of the 2024 and 2025 Federal Government budgets using artificial intelligence showed that several institutions were implementing electricity-related projects, including agencies not traditionally identified with the power sector.
He said the lack of coordination had also resulted in cases where projects operated by different programmes were located in the same areas.
According to him, the situation has become more concerning as funding available for electricity projects declines, making it necessary for stakeholders to share information and coordinate investments.
Aliyu proposed a central platform containing information on electricity projects across the country. He said such a system would enable stakeholders to identify areas that already have interventions and determine locations where additional projects are required.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, represented at the event by his Chief of Staff, Doyin Adelabu, also identified fragmentation as a major obstacle to effective electricity project delivery.
Tegbe said the Federal Government was setting up a permanent Off-Grid Coordination Secretariat to monitor commitments and risks, organise working groups around specific challenges and provide shared information for stakeholders.
The ministry also called on development partners, financiers, private operators, state governments and civil society organisations to appoint representatives who would participate in the coordination process and share relevant project data.
The initiative is expected to support the implementation of the National Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan while helping states develop electricity markets under the Electricity Act.
Executive Director of the Rural Electrification Fund, Doris Uboh-Ogunkoya, said coordination should continue between stakeholder meetings rather than being treated as an occasional exercise.
She said the new secretariat would monitor commitments, identify gaps and help resolve challenges affecting off-grid projects.
Meanwhile, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria representative, Ikenna-Donald Ofoegbu, urged stakeholders to broaden the way they measure the impact of electricity projects.
He said installing mini-grids, deploying solar home systems and providing connections were important indicators, but stakeholders should also consider whether electricity access is supporting businesses and other productive activities.
Ofoegbu also called for more innovative financing, sustainable projects and stronger local capacity to help the off-grid sector expand beyond individual interventions.
The coordination forum was initially established as a donor roundtable in 2017 before being relaunched under a broader framework involving more stakeholders.
The Federal Government said more than 7.5 million Nigerians have so far gained electricity access through over 200 solar hybrid mini-grids and approximately 1.8 million solar home system connections.
The Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up programme is expected to extend electricity access to another 17 million Nigerians and add about 465 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.
Nigeria is also participating in Mission 300, a wider African initiative aimed at connecting 300 million people to electricity by 2030.
