Dino Melaye blames poor governance for Nigeria’s persistent power crisis

Former Kogi West Senator, Dino Melaye, has raised alarms over Nigeria’s electricity sector, attributing the country’s ongoing power challenges to governance failures rather than technical limitations.

In a statement posted on X on Wednesday, Melaye highlighted that although Nigeria has been generating electricity since 1896, the national grid continues to struggle, with power output often dropping drastically.

“Nigeria has been generating electricity since 1896. That’s 130 years. Today, in March 2026, the national grid just dropped to 3,940 megawatts. For 220 million people,” he said.

Melaye contrasted Nigeria’s power capacity with other African nations, noting South Africa produces over 48,000 megawatts for 60 million people, while Egypt has 11,000 MW for 110 million.

“Nigeria? About 13,000MW installed. On a good day, we can only move about 4,000 to 5,000MW through the grid. The rest just sits there. Wasted,” he added.
He cited frequent grid collapses and infrastructure damage, including 12 grid failures and 128 transmission towers vandalised in 2024 alone.

“The government used N8.8 billion just to fix them,” Melaye said, referencing data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which recorded 222 partial or complete grid failures between 2010 and 2022.

The former senator also highlighted the financial burden of restarting power plants after outages. “Every time the power grid fails, it costs Nigeria around $25 million to restart just three power plants: Azura, Delta, and Shiroro. That’s N42.5 billion per collapse,” he said.

Melaye warned of mounting sector debts, revealing that as of February 2026, power companies are owed N6.8 trillion, growing by N200 billion monthly.

He linked the crisis to business shutdowns, job losses, and economic strain, noting, “In 2023, 767 manufacturing companies shut down.
The World Bank says that power cuts in Nigeria cost the country about $29 billion each year. That’s about 10% of GDP.”