*Says power generation has risen to 6000MW
By Citizenship Daily
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has made a case for the payment of N4trillion owed Power Generating Companies (GENCOs), to speed up power sufficiency and supply in the country.
He made the case on Thursday in Abuja at a Ministerial Press Briefing organised by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mallam Mohammed Idris Malagi.
Adelabu said the N4trillion unpaid power generation company debts accrued as a result of tariff shortfall.
The local power generating companies need to be in business to further drive the economy, hence the need to pay the debts owed them, he argued.
He also listed some of the challenges confronting the power sector to include rampant vandalism of power infrastructure, power theft and unpaid bills, resistance to tariff review and poor investment by operators.
He revealed that the Federal Government has earned additional N700 billion revenue from power sector reforms.
Adelabu attributed the revenue inflow to the tariff reforms of the Tinubu administration.
“The market has generated an additional ₦700 billion in revenue, reflecting a 70% increase,” he said.
“This results from the cost-reflective tariff adjustment for Band A customers. Market revenue for 2024 rose from NGN 1 trillion in 2023 to NGN 1.7 trillion,” he added.
According to him, “This growth in market revenue is unprecedented, as the highest growth previously achieved was 20%.
“This positively impacts the reduction of the government-subsidised tariff shortfall by 35%, decreasing it from NGN 3 trillion to NGN 1.9 trillion.”
This, Adelabu said, demonstrates that financial viability and service delivery can coexist harmoniously.
The Power Minister also gave indication that on 2 March 2025, Nigeria reached a remarkable generation available capacity of 6,003 MW, marking the first time this level had been recorded in the country’s history. This achievement, he said, was followed by a peak generation evacuation of 5,801.44 megawatts on 4 March 2025, which also saw an impressive daily energy output of 128,370.75 megawatt-hours on that day.
The average daily power generated and distributed in the past quarter of 2025 was 5,700 MW compared with the 4,100 MW achieved in the third quarter of 2023, he said.
This, he said, indicates a growth of 1,600 MW, nearly 40% growth since Tinubu assumed office as President.
“Given that it took the country almost 40 years to achieve an incremental 2,000 MW average energy, we accomplished this in less than two years,” he said.
He also threatened to sanction any power sector official caught in the act of illegally downgrading or migrating electricity users from one band to another to cut corners, and urged members of the public to report such unholy acts for immediate sanctions.
