Independently powering public institutions

Federal Government’s plan to power its facilities with solar mini-grids finally came off the proverbial drawing board, with the August 8, 2025 launch of the National Public Sector Solarisation Initiative, NPSSI.

This followed the agreement among the Rural Electrification Agency, REA; Budget Office of the Federation, BOF; Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria, ICN; and the Federal Ministry of Finance, FMF. The take-off phase of the programme carries a price tag of N100 billion. Prospective beneficiaries will include federal tertiary academic institutions, ministries, departments, agencies and others.

According to the Managing Director of REA, the main implementing agency, Abbas Aliyu: “At its core, the initiative was birthed from a strategic national priority: the urgent need to power critical infrastructure with clean, reliable energy, while moving away from diesel dependence and reducing the public sector’s carbon footprint”.

A major backlash of our big Federal Government is the massive amount of money required to run MDAs on diesel amid epileptic public power supply. With the cost of fuels almost five times what they used to be (not mentioning their massive greenhouse gas emissions), the resort to the solar alternative is a no brainer.

The high cost of fuelling our federal tertiary institutions has rendered life on university campuses a hellish experience. Students and staff go for long stretches of time without electricity, which also affects other service such as water supply.

Frictions arising from high cost of providing power by the Distribution Companies, DISCOs, are compounded by unpaid bills. These have frequently led to vandalisation of power companies and brutalisation of their staff by military personnel.

With the successful implementation of solar-based independent grids, government would not only transition from the highly toxic fossil fuelling system to the cleaner, greener and more sustainable solar alternative.

The easiest and best part of all laudable initiatives such as this is implementation. But this is not the case in Nigeria. After the flowery speeches and bandying of humongous amounts, most ambitious projects are abandoned either due to poor funding or embezzlement, or both.

We call on the Vice President, Kashim Shettima under whose office the REA is domiciled, to take a personal interest in driving this initiative to success. Nigerians will hold his office accountable for its success or failure.

Also very important is the need to ensure that beneficiary institutions, especially the legacy federal universities, are evenly and equitably selected from the geopolitical zones. The constant mentioning of such institutions from a particular part of country is worrisome.

Along with the federal tertiary academic and medical institutions, we also call for the prioritisation of military, police and security offices and barracks across the country.

The market for solar energy in Nigeria is infinite due to acute supply shortfalls. We need massive investments in solar manufacturing plants to take cheaper, greener energy to the grass-roots.

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