The federal government says the country’s generation of electricity will hit 8,000 megawatt before the end of 2027.
Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, said this milestone will be achieved before the end of President Bola Tinubu’s administration in 2027.
The minister spoke during a ministerial press briefing hosted by Mohammed Idris, minister of information and national orientation, on Thursday.
According to the minister, the Tinubu administration, which was elected in 2023, has increased power generation by 1,700 megawatts in two years.
He said efforts like this took previous administrations 35 years to achieve a 2,000 megawatt.
Adelabu assured that if the new trajectory is sustained, before the end of the Tinubu administration in 2027, the power ministry will generate and distribute 8,000 megawatts of power or more.
“In the country’s history of the power sector, let me thank our agencies, our operators, that this was achieved during our time,” Adelabu said.
“We have crossed the bar of 6,000 megawatts for the first time in the history of Nigeria’s power sector.
“That is not enough, this achievement was followed by a peak generation evacuation of 5,801.44 megawatts on 4th of March 2025, which also saw an impressive daily energy output, the highest ever, 128,370.75 megawatts per day on that very day.
“We’ve always been at 118,000 to 119,000 megawatts on a daily basis, but we achieved 128,000. That is the highest energy ever consumed in a day since the power sector came to being in Nigeria, and we are proud to achieve this.
“In summary, the average daily power generated and distributed in the first quarter of 2025 was 5,700 megawatts.
“Compared with what we met when we resumed office, average of 4,100 megawatts achieved in the third quarter of 2023, this indicate a growth of 1,600 megawatts, nearly 40% growth since we assumed office at the ministry.
“This is very important to us. I came into office August 2023, and between July, August, and September, what we achieved was 4,100 generated, evacuated, transmitted, and distributed, and it’s always been like that. Even though there were spikes in the past, it would go up, it would come down.
“It was not sustainable, and it took the country about 40 years. In 1984, when Alhaji Rilwanu Lukman was the federal minister of power, we achieved 2,000 megawatts of power generation.
“We took this to 4,000, about 2016-2022, so it took the country between 35 to 40 years to achieve 2,000 incremental generation.
“But this administration, thanks to our Mr. President for his support, in one and a half years, we grew this from 4,100 to a peak generation of 5,800; 1,700 increase in one and a half years.
“What we are saying is that past administrations have their own positives, the creation of the NIPPs, a lot of things that they achieved.
“If they have been adding at least 1,000 megawatts of power since 1999, we’d be talking about 26,000 megawatts, plus 4,000, that would be about 30,000 megawatts of power in Nigeria today, but we cannot keep dwelling in the past.
“It’s the way forward. Now that we have created the trajectory, if we sustain this trajectory, I can assure you that before the end of this administration in 2027, we should be able to generate and distribute nothing less than 8,000 megawatts of power.
“So, given that it took the country almost 40 years to achieve an incremental 2,000 megawatt average energy, we accomplished this.”
