Former Vice President of Nigeria and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has said the Tinubu administration has finally arrived at a policy direction he first advocated more than two decades ago, after spending nearly three years worsening Nigeria’s electricity crisis through poor planning and misplaced priorities.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the recent admission by the Minister of Power that Nigeria can no longer depend solely on large, centralised power plants amounts to a belated endorsement of the decentralised electricity generation model he championed over 20 years ago.
“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,” Atiku said.
He lamented that instead of pursuing bold structural reforms from the outset, the Tinubu administration chose to increase electricity tariffs while leaving Nigerians in deeper darkness.
“A government that thinks before it acts would have fixed the system before asking citizens to pay more. Unfortunately, this administration has done the exact opposite—raising tariffs first and only now beginning to think about the reforms required to justify those increases.”
Atiku recalled that during his tenure as Vice President, he consistently urged President Olusegun Obasanjo to decentralise electricity generation by harnessing Nigeria’s diverse energy resources, including hydroelectric dams, solar, gas and other viable sources.
He disclosed that his conviction was so strong that when President Obasanjo established the Power Sector Reform Committee, founded principally on a gas-driven generation strategy, he declined to preside over it despite being appointed its Chairman.
“This has been my position for over two decades. When President Obasanjo established the Power Sector Reform Committee based primarily on gas-fired generation, I was appointed Chairman. However, because I fundamentally disagreed with the policy direction, I declined to preside over the committee. I believed then, as I do now, that Nigeria’s electricity future lay in a diversified and decentralised energy mix—not an overdependence on a single source.
Unfortunately, billions of dollars contributed by the Federal Government, states and local governments were committed to that approach, yet the expected results never materialised. Contracts were awarded, huge sums were paid upfront, but much of the promised work was never done. The National Assembly subsequently investigated the power sector reforms and held President Obasanjo accountable for the outcome. I was never invited by the investigators because I had declined to chair the committee despite being formally appointed. My position has remained consistent: Nigeria must diversify its sources of electricity generation if we are to achieve stable, affordable and sustainable power.”
The former Vice President noted that he publicly restated this position during an interview with ARISE News in 2022 and made it a central pillar of his presidential campaigns from 2007 through 2023.
“For more than two decades, I have consistently argued that Nigeria’s overdependence on a centralised generation system was economically unsustainable and technically inefficient. Today, the Tinubu administration is merely acknowledging what I proposed years ago.”
According to Atiku, affordable and reliable electricity remains the foundation of industrialisation, job creation, economic growth and national competitiveness.
“It is regrettable that rather than implementing coherent reforms, this government has spent nearly three years experimenting with the livelihoods of Nigerians. The result has been higher electricity tariffs, struggling businesses, collapsing manufacturers and households paying more for less power.
“The greatest tragedy is not that this government has finally embraced the right idea. The tragedy is that it took three years of policy drift, higher tariffs and prolonged darkness to discover what could have transformed Nigeria’s power sector more than two decades ago.”
Atiku maintained that an ADC administration under his leadership would pursue a diversified and decentralised electricity generation strategy driven by hydro, gas, solar and other viable energy sources, while expanding transmission infrastructure, strengthening distribution networks and encouraging private sector participation to guarantee stable and affordable electricity across the country.
“Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of ideas. It suffers from a shortage of leaders willing to act on the right ideas at the right time. It is never too late to embrace the right policy, but Nigerians should never have had to pay the price for a government that spent three years learning what should have guided its actions from day one.”
Signed:
Phrank Shaibu
Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to Atiku Abubakar, Vice President of Nigeria 1999-2007 and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress.
26th July, 2026
