Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
By Chido Nwangwu. Follow on X (Twitter) @Chido247
On July 18, 2025, members of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), led by Col. Sani Bello (rtd), were received at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria.
In pointing to the key problems facing the Nigerian energy industry, President Bola Tinubu highlighted some of the “very critical problems” in the country’s energy sector. They were mentioned with accessible options. The President assured them of his administration’s commitment to finding solutions to the liquidity challenges in the energy and power sector. He recommended that their operations be located very close to the financial industry of the country.
The usual phrases, “There’s no light” or “They’ve taken light”, have since become pronouncements of instinct and a sense of subjugation and surrender to the darkness faced by hundreds of millions of Nigerians. Millions say that access to a steady, reliable supply of electricity and alternative, clean energy will be a critical test of the purpose and direction of the Tinubu presidency. It might be the legacy issue to remember, applaud or condemn Tinubu, the ageless Jagaban!
Mr. Tinubu is not making a parade of what he is putting in place for power supply and energy — if anything significant. As an experienced power player, it’s good to be cautious.
Especially where soldiers and civilians and foreign corporations have failed and walked away with tons of money from the bottomless, exponentially lucrative contracts awarded for power plants and other equipment and machines for making electricity happen. After all, trillions of Naira, Euros and Dollars have been budgeted, spent, and shared within the familiar networks and rings of criminal subterfuge, in and outside Nigeria.
I believe that the controversial Tinubu understands the implications of another merry-go-round into 2026….
Tinubu promised Nigerians that he would solve the electricity, power supply and energy problems facing Africa’s most influential and most populated country. Sadly, a lot of Nigeria’s resources have been squandered in serial financial shenanigans; squandered without mercy, without decorum. Squandered, without the fear of God!
When you assess the level of disregard that the Nigerian elite, military and civilian rulers have kept and held Nigerians, since 1960, the year of its political independence, you feel the weight of the corruption, crooked and callous incompetence of some of these leaders. Nigeria’s first Integrated National Electricity Policy in 24 years was launched to improve planning and implementation.
But the quest to the building and sustenance of power supply: electricity, natural gas, solar energy and other creative processes of generating reliable and scalable power continue to expose 65 years of monumental incompetence, sheer wickedness and brutal disregard for the well-being of those who wake and toil for Nigeria and their families, every day!
It is equally important to underscore the point that Tinubu signed the Electricity Act 2023, which aims to liberalize the electricity market and empower States to manage their own sectors.
These developments and policy reviews came, in part, against the background of the mid-March 2022 nationwide collapse of Nigeria’s Electricity grid at all the e-DISCOs (Electric Distribution Companies). Those also revealed, for the 100th time, the shame and criminal connivance and incompetence of some of the inglorious leaders of Nigeria, and some of its “business elite.” Generating Companies (GenCos) are threatened by massive and catastrophic debts from non-payment by the Distribution Companies (DisCos).
At the end of the day, the average Nigerian and the rich Nigerian live through the sweaty blanket of darkness. They all swear against the original, defunct godfather of impunity and corruption, called NEPA (Never Expect Power Always)!
The familiar symptoms.
The comparable incompetence.
Similar afflictions are growing in some of the GenCos and DisCos in Nigeria.
Hence, most Nigerians are still stuck in surrealistic darkness, in collective and individual capacities. Generators are pollutants! They have since become disconcerting, daily reminders of the Nigerian leaders’ contemptible lack of seriousness. They are very loud, discordant reminders of a society furiously chasing infrastructural development, backwardly!
- Dr. Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., is the Founder of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He has received U.S Congressional recognition and National Immigration awards for his work which foster the business and international public policy of the United States and Africa. Chido served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. Follow him on X @Chido247
Will Trump’s tariffs drive America to a catastrophic strategic blunder? By Chido Nwangwu
