Tegbe’s Shocking 100-Days Promise To Fix The Grid

Joseph Tegbe, the ministerial nominee for Power, shocked lawmakers on Wednesday by pledging, if confirmed, to stabilize Nigeria’s precarious electrical grid within his first 100 days in office. This statement set the stage for what could turn out to be one of the administration’s most pressured reform agendas.

“If you don’t see this in three months, it means you won’t see it in six months. You must see results in the first 100 days, and you must hold us accountable,” Tegbe told the Senate during his screening.

“The first phase in the 100 days is to stabilise the grid… we need to enforce strict codes against indiscipline and ensure a disciplined system across the sector.

However, it was the Senate’s intervention that defined the tone of the screening, as lawmakers urged Tegbe to confront what they described as entrenched interests benefiting from Nigeria’s chronic darkness.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, warned that a powerful ecosystem had developed around electricity failure, particularly the booming generator import and sales market.

“There is a cabal you must confront, both within the system and outside it. Those importing generators are thriving because power is not stable,” Abaribe said.

Lawmakers described the generator market as a “failure-driven economy,” sustained by persistent grid collapse and weak supply reliability across residential, commercial, and institutional users.
Former Minister of Power, Senator Danjuma Goje, reinforced the concerns with a blunt assessment of the sector’s internal dynamics, warning that inefficiency has become financially rewarding for some operators.
“When power goes out, some people see opportunity, not crisis,” Goje said.

“You must not allow a situation where inefficiency becomes a business model.”

“Be careful with maintenance figures coming to you. Some of them are not genuine. If you don’t check it, you will be sustaining the problem you are meant to solve,” he said.

“Even when power is generated, it is not efficiently transmitted, and when it gets to distribution, it is not properly delivered to Nigerians,” Goje said.
Lawmakers warned that without coordinated reform across the entire value chain, improvements in one segment would not translate into stable electricity supply.

Tegbe also drew attention to external pressures affecting the sector, particularly vandalism of transmission infrastructure, which he described as a national security concern requiring stronger collaboration with security agencies.

He further acknowledged that liquidity challenges remain one of the most critical barriers to sector performance, with debts affecting generation companies’ ability to pay for gas and sustain operations.
“We Will End Leakages and Disrupt Entrenched Interests”
In a more forceful tone, Tegbe warned that certain actors within the system benefit from recurring failures and would need to be confronted directly.

“When there is power failure, some engineers are relaxed because they know more jobs are coming,” he said.
“We are going to put a stop to leakages and challenges in the power sector.”
He pledged to introduce tighter monitoring systems, improve operational discipline, and strengthen collaboration across stakeholders in generation, transmission, and distribution.

Is it truly possible to achieve this ambitious goal in just 100 days? Only time will tell. For now, we remain hopeful and patient as we watch and wait for these promises to unfold. The nation’s future depends on it, and we are eager to see if this bold plan can turn things around.