Ramping up solar option to close energy gap

Nigeria’s electricity crisis indicts decades of failed planning. For a population approaching 240 million, the national grid remains unreliable, while millions lack access altogether. The World Bank’s access series put electricity access at 62.5 per cent in 2024; the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) says more than 85 million people remain without grid power.

Installed capacity guarantees nothing when gas shortages, transmission bottlenecks and distribution failures keep power from consumers. Successive administrations have promised relief through independent power projects, yet spending has delivered too little amid corruption allegations and poor accountability. Mambilla is the glaring cautionary tale.

Conceived decades ago as a 3,050-megawatt hydroelectric project, it remains stalled by contractual disputes and litigation. In September 2026, an international tribunal rejected Sunrise Power’s claims against Nigeria and found settlement arrangements tainted by corruption. That ruling only removed a legal obstacle without switching on a single megawatt.

Solar offers a practical route to closing the gap. Nigeria receives average solar irradiation of about 5.5 kilowatt-hours per square metre daily and has a theoretical potential of 427 gigawatts, yet uses less than two per cent of it. Rooftop systems, mini-grids and solar home systems can reach off-grid communities, power clinics and schools, and help businesses escape costly generators.

Solar with batteries cannot meet every round-the-clock industrial need, but it can complement hydro, gas and a reformed national grid. President Bola Tinubu’s N10 billion solar project at Aso Rock, completed for testing in late 2025, is expected to reduce the Villa’s dependence on the grid. It demonstrates solar energy’s value and also the privilege gap: the Presidency is shielding itself from outages endured by ordinary Nigerians.

The same determination must reach homes, markets, farms and public institutions. Government should scale up the $750 million World Bank-backed DARES programme, provide affordable credit and pay-for-service plans, and prioritise solar mini-grids in underserved communities. States can use the Electricity Act 2023 to license intrastate markets, attract private developers and solarise hospitals, schools, water systems and industrial clusters.

Federal agencies should set transparent targets, stable incentives and guarantees that attract investment. India’s rooftop and agricultural solar programmes, alongside domestic panel manufacturing, show how finance, public procurement and clear standards can build markets. Nigeria should expand local panel assembly, then develop batteries, inverters, mounting structures and recycling through joint ventures and technology transfer.

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) must enforce certification, traceability and installer competence, excluding counterfeits without using protectionism to inflate prices. We need a national target for millions of new solar connections, an increase in local content and the publication of annual progress and audit spending. Solar must not become another slogan or procurement scandal.

Properly financed, regulated and deployed, it can turn Nigeria’s sunshine into productive power—and make electricity access a common public amenity, not a presidential privilege.