Roughly three weeks ago, the Stears newsroom showed how Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s President, has performed in several critical economic areas based on his administration’s party manifesto.
The performance failed to inspire confidence in most sectors we covered—from education, employment, and agriculture. However, when it came to tech, energy, gas, and telecommunication, some notable achievements, such as internet affordability and the idea behind gas-powered vehicles, were a little encouraging. You should check out the story if you haven’t. But if you have read it and wondered how this administration performed in other areas, today’s article is for you.
Key takeaways:
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The Buhari administration made several promises to transform the infrastructure in Nigeria’s power sector. The promises conveyed through its campaign manifesto tagged “the next level road map” were in four broad categories—generation, distribution, off-grid and rural electrification.
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The administration did not fulfil its promise of generating 1,000 MW of electricity yearly. Instead of gaining an additional 1,000 MW, generated capacity reduced by 263 MW in 2020 and 925MW (nearly equivalent to the projected target) in 2021.
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However, off-grid and rural electrification promises recorded notable progress. For instance, five out of the nine promised universities have seen the commissioning of solar-powered energy and recorded over 11,000 electricity connections through mini-grids.
Today's assessment will focus on the Buhari administration's promises for the power sector.
For the scorecard, we will award points for every promise achieved. This means if Buhari and his team promised a 24-hour power supply to Nigerians by 2019, and as of 2019, Nigerians had 24 hours of light, they would get some points (see scorecard below).
But we will take the assessment further by examining how effective these priorities were.
