The new Minister of Power, Olasunkanmi Tegbe, on Wednesday, assured Nigerians that the era of repeated national grid collapses, erratic electricity supply, and persistent vandalism of power infrastructure would soon be brought under control, pledging urgent reforms to stabilise the country’s troubled power sector.
Tegbe gave the assurance during his screening during the Senate plenary in Abuja, where he was later confirmed as Minister of Power following questioning from lawmakers over the state of the electricity sector.
The confirmation followed a rigorous screening session presided over by Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, during which lawmakers pressed the nominee for firm timelines, transparency and a clear reform roadmap to stabilise electricity supply and restore investor confidence.
The Senate also handed him what lawmakers described as a mandate to deliver rapid and measurable improvements in a sector long crippled by grid collapses, weak transmission infrastructure and a deepening liquidity crisis estimated in trillions of naira.
In a rare show of bipartisan concern, senators warned that Nigerians had grown tired of promises, insisting that Tegbe must demonstrate visible results within months or risk losing public trust.
Leading the charge, Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno North) described the appointment as timely but stressed that the scale of the sector’s dysfunction required decisive and urgent intervention.
He decried the recurring collapse of the national grid, calling it a major setback to Nigeria’s industrial ambitions, and blamed transmission bottlenecks for the inability to evacuate generated power effectively.
“Grid collapse has become a recurring decimal, undermining development. Transmission has failed to match generation capacity,” he said, adding that insecurity in parts of the North-east had worsened infrastructure damage.
Responding, Tegbe acknowledged that the challenges facing the sector were systemic rather than isolated, citing weak coordination, poor enforcement of technical standards and inadequate gas supply as major causes of instability.
“Grid collapse is not accidental; it reflects deeper structural problems,” he said.
He pledged a 100-day reform window aimed at stabilising the grid and introducing a public performance dashboard to allow Nigerians to track progress and hold the ministry accountable.
“If there are no results in three months, there will be none in six. Nigerians should hold us accountable,” he declared.
Tegbe also raised concerns about entrenched interests benefiting from inefficiencies in the sector, vowing to confront sabotage head-on.
“There are elements that do not want the system to work because they benefit from its failure. We will take them on,” he said.
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