The Federal Government has approved plans to construct a new Eastern-Western electricity grid aimed at tackling Nigeria’s frequent power grid collapses.
Minister of Power Joseph Tegbe made the disclosure at a recent HBSAN energy conference in Lagos, where he outlined measures to fix longstanding weaknesses in the country’s electricity transmission infrastructure.
Tegbe said the government is preparing to start the procurement process for the projects, with Nigerians expected to begin seeing the benefits in two to three years.
He explained that the administration has divided the country into three energy zones and prioritised high-demand areas.
Fixing the Lagos and Abuja corridors alone, he noted, would address more than half of Nigeria’s electricity challenges, but this must be supported by expanded grid infrastructure.
“The President has approved that we commence the process of building out the grid: East and Western grid. We’re going through the procurement process, but it’s something you’ll see the benefits in two to three years,” Tegbe said.
The minister also revealed that a nationwide technical audit of electricity infrastructure is underway to identify faults and determine which facilities need urgent repairs or replacement.
The exercise is meant to ensure interventions target the real problems rather than misdirected spending.
“We have started a technical audit across the entire country to say where do we have issues, and what issues specifically do we have. I don’t want to fix transformer issues where I have conductor and relay problems. I don’t want to fix insulators where the challenges I actually have are towers. So, we will finish that technical audit in the next couple of weeks. When we finish it, we then target our prioritised areas,” he said.
Tegbe attributed some of the transmission network’s problems to ageing infrastructure, noting that certain towers and lines date back decades to the era of the Electricity Company of Nigeria (ECN), which predated the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).
“This government has inherited a problem of 50 years... Some of these things were built 50 years ago. That is the reality,” he stated.
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