Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has apologised to Nigerians over the recent wave of persistent power outages, admitting that the situation has worsened hardship across homes, businesses, schools, and industries amid rising temperatures.
The apology was delivered during a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, following growing public frustration over erratic electricity supply during the peak of the dry season.
“I want to apologise to Nigerians, officially now, coming from me as the Minister of Power, for this temporary issue that is leading to hardship being experienced, especially during this dry season, where there is so much heat everywhere,” Adelabu said.
He acknowledged the widespread impact of the outages, adding, “Businesses are being affected, schools have been affected, and industries have been affected. It is not our wish to find ourselves in this situation, but it is due to some factors that are actually beyond our control.”
Despite the disruptions, the minister assured Nigerians that improvements in electricity supply would begin within two weeks, citing ongoing repairs and renewed commitments from gas suppliers. “I can tell you… two weeks from now, we should start seeing improvements in supply. Two weeks,” he stated.
Adelabu explained that repairs to key gas infrastructure, including facilities linked to Seplat Energy, are expected to restore supply to power plants, while a special committee has been set up to monitor compliance with domestic gas supply obligations. “We already have a committee that is working on this to track compliance with the domestic supply obligations of these gas companies to our power plants,” he said.
He further assured that the government is working round the clock to stabilise the sector and return to improved performance levels recorded previously. “We are working on it 24/7 to make sure that we go back to the trajectory of 2025, when Nigerians commended us for a good job well done,” Adelabu said.
Reaffirming long-term plans, the minister said the Federal Government remains committed to boosting power generation to 6,000 megawatts before the end of 2026. “Power generation will improve, transmission will improve, distribution will improve… Nigerians will be better for it,” he added, expressing optimism that the sector would surpass past performance despite ongoing structural challenges.
