Thursday 16 April, 2026

The government announced ₦3.3trn to fix Nigerian electricity. Generation has fallen since.

Nigeria's power sector has a ritual. An announcement arrives. A figure is named. Officials say the cycle that has been running for a decade is finally being broken. Then the lights stay off.

Last week it was ₦3.3trn.

President Tinubu approved a plan to settle all legacy debts owed to generation companies. These obligations accumulated between 2015 and 2025. The presidency said 15 power plants had already signed settlement agreements worth ₦2.3trn. ₦223bn had been disbursed. The Special Adviser on Energy said confidence was being restored.

Here's what the grid showed. Actual generation allocated to distribution companies was 3,345 megawatts as of April 3. In 2025, it was around 5,000. Generation has gone down since the announcement, not up.

The reason is structural and specific. Nigerian electricity is built around a chain. Generation companies produce power. The bulk trader is NBET. NBET pays the generators using money it collects from distribution companies. But distribution companies collect less than the actual cost of electricity, because tariffs have never covered production costs. The shortfall moves up the chain. GenCos don't get fully paid. Gas suppliers run the thermal plants that produce most of Nigeria's grid electricity. They stop delivering when they haven't been paid. Less gas means less generation. Less generation means what you're already living with.

The ₦3.3trn plan addresses the historical debt. It doesn't address the monthly shortfall that keeps adding to it. The Association of Power Generation Companies says the total debt is closer to ₦12trn. Their CEO, Joy Ogaji, says the debt the government used as its basis was calculated by NBET. NBET is the same body that owes the money. She asked, publicly, who audits the auditor.

None of that is new. The announcement of the ₦3.3trn wasn't new either. A version of the same settlement has been promised since at least 2024. Tinubu reportedly approved ₦4trn at a meeting with power producers that year. That figure has since been revised down without explanation.

What's new is the aviation shutdown notice sitting alongside it. The same deregulated fuel market that has starved thermal plants of gas is the one that's pricing airlines out of the sky. Jet A1 and natural gas for power generation are not the same product. But they run on the same logic. A downstream sector where marketers set prices, buyers have no alternative, and the government's only tool is the choice to intervene.

Here's what this means for you. If you own a generator, your running costs have been rising with diesel prices for two years. Most Nigerians who can afford one, do. The government's electricity fix isn't reducing your generator dependence yet. And the same system that has kept your generator running all this time is now telling the airlines they have four days to find a solution or stop flying.

That's the pattern you've been living inside. It just got named.