President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu has acknowledged securing a $1.1 billion fund from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to provide electricity for 5 million people by the end of 2026.
According to Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, (Information & Strategy), the president made this known in a speech presented by Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, at the just concluded two-day Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
“I (Tinubu) acknowledged AfDB’s $1.1 billion, expected to provide electricity for 5 million people by the end of 2026, while its $200 million in the Nigeria Electrification Project will provide electricity for 500,000 people by the end of 2025.
“This is an ambitious goal, but we can achieve it together,” Tinubu said. “As Nigeria’s President, I am committed to making energy access a top priority.”
The AfDB, through Kevin Kariuki, Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth Complex, first announced support of Nigeria’s power sector with $1 billion in May 2024 at the Eight Africa Energy MarketPlace (AEMP) Forum in Abuja.
Kariuki said: “We will be shortly seeking board approval for a one billion dollar policy-based operation (PBO) with a significant energy component.
“This is aimed at supporting the ongoing power sector reforms triggered by the new Electricity Act. The timing of the AEMP and the proposed policy-based lending focused on the energy sector is, therefore, not coincidental.
“We will finance the policy recommendations to actualise the expected outcomes from the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan.”
Meanwhile, the president of Nigeria is also expecting to get the planned $1.2 billion AfDB investment in the Nigeria Desert to Power programme and facility for the Nigeria-Grid Battery Energy Storage System.
“We also look forward to the AfDB’s planned $700 million investment in the Nigeria Desert to Power programme and its planned $500 million facility for the Nigeria-Grid Battery Energy Storage System, which will provide electricity for an additional two million people,” Tinubu said.
“We have equally begun making plans to ensure the effectiveness of the World Bank’s $750 million support for expanding Nigeria’s distributed energy access via mini-grids and standalone solar systems that will provide access to power to 16.2 million people,” he added.
President Tinubu thanked Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, and Akinwunmi Adesina of AfDB for their transformative vision, which he said “will light up and power Africa.”
He also applauded the contributions of the UN Sustainable Energy For All, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Global Energy Alliance for Development.