Tinubu adopting my 21-year-old power blueprint after three years of policy failure — Atiku

Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that the President Bola Tinubu administration has only now embraced a power sector policy direction he advocated more than two decades ago, after spending nearly three years pursuing what he described as misguided electricity reforms.

Mr Atiku, in a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the recent acknowledgement by the Minister of Power that Nigeria could no longer rely solely on large, centralised power plants amounted to a validation of his long-standing advocacy for decentralised electricity generation.

According to him, the government’s latest position came after years of worsening electricity supply, higher tariffs and policies that failed to address the country’s underlying power challenges.

“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,” Atiku said.

The former vice president criticised the Tinubu administration for increasing electricity tariffs before implementing structural reforms capable of improving power supply, arguing that Nigerians were paying more despite receiving less electricity.

“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,” he stated.

Atiku recalled that while serving as vice president during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, he consistently advocated decentralising electricity generation by harnessing Nigeria’s abundant hydroelectric, solar, gas and other energy resources instead of relying predominantly on a centralised system.

He disclosed that although former President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him chairman of the Power Sector Reform Committee, he declined to preside over it because he disagreed with its gas-driven electricity generation strategy.

“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,” he said.

Atiku further argued that billions of naira contributed by the federal, state and local governments were invested in the power sector under that strategy, but failed to deliver the expected results.

According to him, contracts were awarded and huge sums paid in advance, yet much of the promised work was not executed.

He also noted that although the National Assembly later investigated the power sector reforms and held former President Obasanjo accountable, he was never invited by lawmakers because he had declined to chair the committee.

The former vice president said he had consistently maintained the same position over the years, adding that he reiterated it during an interview with ARISE News in 2022 and made decentralised electricity generation a major component of his presidential campaigns from 2007 to 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,” he said.

Atiku maintained that stable and affordable electricity remained critical to industrialisation, job creation, economic growth and national competitiveness.

He accused the current administration of spending nearly three years “experimenting” with the livelihoods of Nigerians instead of implementing coherent reforms.

“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,” he added.

The former vice president said that if elected president under the ADC, his administration would pursue a diversified and decentralised electricity generation strategy powered by hydro, gas, solar and other renewable energy sources.

He said the policy would also focus on expanding transmission infrastructure, strengthening distribution networks and encouraging greater private sector participation to ensure reliable 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,” Atiku said.