The Rural Electrification Agency has engaged 20 states on a roadmap to expand electricity access following the signing of the Electricity Act 2023.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Abba Aliyu, disclosed this during a chat with TVC News on Tuesday, explaining that the engagements were aimed at presenting data on unelectrified and underserved communities to state governments to support sub-national participation in power delivery.
“Riding on the Electricity Act of 2023 that was signed by Mr President, we completed engagement with 20 sub-nationals, 20 states, where we presented the data of the communities that are unserved or underserved to the executive or the leadership of the state governors,” he said.
According to him, the exercise was designed to enable states to key into the implementation of the Electricity Act and understand both the scale of electricity access gaps and the most cost-effective options for closing them.
“It is with a view for the state to also key into the implementation of the Electricity Act, to get to know the communities that are unserved and underserved, and to also get to know the least cost of providing electricity to these communities,” Aliyu added.
The REA boss said the engagements were supported by newly completed national data mapping, which for the first time provides a comprehensive picture of electricity access across Nigeria.
“From the data, we just completed the National Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan, where for the first time in the history of Nigeria, we mapped the entire country and identified these communities that are either unserved or underserved,” he said.
Aliyu noted that the mapping exercise also captured the economic and socio-economic conditions of communities, allowing the agency to determine appropriate electrification solutions.
“From my system, I can tell you the total number of communities within Nigeria that are without electricity access, what the least cost of providing them with this electricity is, and how many households are within these communities,” he stated.
He placed Nigeria’s electricity access challenge in a global context, saying the country has the highest number of people without electricity access worldwide.
“Nigeria has the highest number of people without electricity access in the entire world,” Aliyu said, adding that estimates show “close to 82 to 86 million people without reliable access.”
He further explained that while about 40 million Nigerians technically have access to electricity, they suffer from poor quality of supply.
“Over 40 million people are those that are on the grid side, which means that they have access, but they do not have quality of supply,” he said.
Aliyu said the agency’s mandate was to address both access and reliability challenges, stressing that recent interventions, including mini-grids and grid extensions, were aligned with the data-driven roadmap now being shared with states.
