Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe has said the improvements in electricity supply have gone so well in some parts of the country that residents are now asking him to ease off because their freezers won’t stop running.
Tegbe made the remark on Wednesday while commissioning a 3-megawatt solar hybrid power project at Yakubu Gowon University, formerly the University of Abuja, where he shared some of the feedback he’s been getting from consumers since supply began improving in several regions.
“Places that didn’t have light at all for three months are now having 18 hours light,” he said. “Some areas called me to say, look, I should slow down, that everything in their freezer is freezing. That is what freezer is meant to do. Let it freeze the food that needs to be frozen.”
The minister recalled that during his Senate screening, he had promised Nigerians would start seeing real improvements in power supply within three to six months, a pledge he suggested is now bearing fruit.
But he didn’t shy away from the scale of the challenge still ahead, pointing out that much of the country’s electricity infrastructure is decades past its prime.
“Some of the infrastructure we have in the electricity and power sector are more than 40 years old,” he said. “We’re systematically replacing them, phasing them out and bringing new ones.”
Vandalism remains one of the sector’s most persistent headaches, Tegbe said, revealing that three major transmission towers in Birnin Kebbi were recently brought down by vandals. The towers formed part of the infrastructure supplying electricity to Kebbi State and onward to Niger Republic.
According to Tegbe, the attackers targeted the towers’ foundations before toppling them, then stripped and sold off parts of the structures in the scrap market.
“You will not believe how many towers get pulled down by vandals,” he said, adding that a joint working committee bringing together the EFCC, the Nigeria Police, and the NSCDC has now been set up to monitor and protect the country’s electricity assets, with vandalism to be treated as a serious criminal offence going forward.
Turning to the project at hand, Tegbe described the university’s new solar hybrid system as a combination of a 3.3-megawatt solar array, 3MW AC output capacity, and battery storage designed to power critical facilities across campus, from lecture halls and laboratories to ICT centres, administrative buildings, and street lighting.
More than 58,726 students stand to benefit from the initiative, he said, which comes with 6,078 photovoltaic panels and 388 streetlights installed across the university, and which generated 3,201 jobs during construction.
He added that the battery storage system has room to grow, potentially extending power to other parts of the campus, including student hostels, with the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) expected to work alongside the university to close remaining lighting gaps.
Tegbe also encouraged the institution to use the new facility as a springboard for research into renewable energy, battery storage, smart metering, grid integration, and cybersecurity.
The Managing Director of the REA, Abba Abubakar Aliyu, called the project a major milestone under the Energizing Education Programme, arguing that its true value lies not in megawatts alone but in what it means for students, research, and the broader learning environment.
Reliable power, he said, would let laboratories function properly, strengthen digital services, and ease pressure on university budgets, while urging the institution to push further into research on distributed energy solutions tailored to Nigeria’s needs.
Olufemi Akinyelure, Head of the Nigeria Electrification Project, framed the investment in broader terms.
“The government may not be in the business of making profit, but it must always be in the business of making progress,” he said. “And perhaps no public investment yields a greater return than investment in education, because when we power a university, we do not merely light buildings; we illuminate minds, enable innovation and strengthen the future of our nation.”
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, praised the Federal Government and the minister for pushing the Energizing Education Programme forward, noting that power supply on university campuses was far more dependable back when he was a student himself.
He stressed, though, that keeping such infrastructure running long-term will depend on the host communities staying actively involved.
Yakubu Gowon University’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Hakeem Fawehinmi, closed out the event by underscoring just how central electricity is to the university’s mission, noting that no modern institution can teach effectively, run laboratories, conduct research, or sustain digital services without dependable power.
He thanked the Federal Government and the REA for the intervention and called for continued collaboration between government agencies and the university to keep the project running and delivering for students and staff.