Former Vice President of Nigeria and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has stated that the President Bola Tinubu administration has finally adopted a policy direction he first advocated over two decades ago. He noted that this shift comes after the government spent nearly three years exacerbating Nigeria’s electricity crisis through poor planning and misplaced priorities.
In a statement issued on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku remarked that the recent admission by the Minister of Power—that Nigeria can no longer depend solely on large, centralized power plants—amounts to a belated endorsement of the decentralized electricity generation model he championed over 20 years ago.
“It should not take a government three years in office to discover what was obvious more than two decades ago,” Atiku said.
The former Vice President lamented that rather than pursuing bold structural reforms from the outset, the Tinubu administration chose to increase electricity tariffs while leaving Nigerians in deeper darkness.
“A government that thinks before it acts would have fixed the underlying systemic issues before asking citizens to pay more. Unfortunately, this administration has done the exact opposite—raising tariffs first and only now beginning to consider the reforms required to justify those increases,” he added.
Recalling his tenure as Vice President (1999–2007), Atiku stated that he consistently urged then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to decentralize electricity generation by harnessing Nigeria’s diverse energy resources, including hydroelectricity, solar, gas, and other renewable sources.
He disclosed that his conviction was so strong that he declined to preside over the Power Sector Reform Committee established by President Obasanjo because it was founded principally on a centralized, gas-driven strategy.
“This has been my position for over two decades. When I was appointed Chairman of the Power Sector Reform Committee, I declined to preside over it because I fundamentally disagreed with the policy direction,” Atiku explained. “I believed then, as I do now, that Nigeria’s electricity future lies in a diversified and decentralized energy mix—not an overdependence on a single source or a centralized grid.”
He further noted that billions of dollars contributed by the federal, state, and local governments were committed to that centralized approach, yet the results never materialized. “Contracts were awarded and huge sums were paid upfront, but much of the promised work was never completed. I was never invited by the subsequent National Assembly investigators because I had refused to lead that committee. My position remains consistent: Nigeria must diversify its generation sources to achieve stable, affordable, and sustainable power.”
Atiku emphasized that he publicly restated this position during a 2022 media interview and made it a central pillar of his presidential campaigns from 2007 through 2023.
“For more than 20 years, I have argued that Nigeria’s overdependence on a centralized system was economically unsustainable and technically inefficient. Today, the Tinubu administration is merely acknowledging what I proposed years ago,” he said.
According to Atiku, reliable electricity is the bedrock of industrialization, job creation, and national competitiveness. He criticized the government for “experimenting with the livelihoods of Nigerians” for three years, resulting in struggling businesses, collapsing manufacturing sectors, and households paying more for less power.
“The tragedy is not that this government has finally embraced the right idea; it is that it took three years of policy drift and prolonged darkness to discover what should have been implemented two decades ago,” Atiku stated.
The ADC candidate maintained that his administration would prioritize a decentralized strategy driven by hydro, gas, and solar energy, while simultaneously expanding transmission infrastructure and encouraging private sector participation to guarantee affordable electricity nationwide.
“Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of ideas; it suffers from a shortage of leaders willing to act on the right ideas at the right time. It is never too late to embrace the correct policy, but Nigerians should never have had to pay the price for a government that spent three years learning the basics,” the statement concluded.
