By Energy Worth
Between January 5 and 10, thousands of Nigerians in parts of Ibadan were formally informed that they would experience daily power outages lasting several hours due to infrastructure relocation by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC). On the surface, it appeared to be a routine technical notice. In reality, it captured a much deeper and more troubling truth about Nigeria’s energy sector: electricity failure has become so normalized that even preventable disruptions are treated as unavoidable facts of life.
Planned blackouts for road construction should not cripple communities in a functional power system. In Nigeria, however, they do. This is because the national grid remains weak, overstretched, and poorly coordinated with other sectors of government. What should have been a managed transition with backup systems instead translated into darkness for homes, small businesses, hospitals, and students. For many households, the outage did not end when power was restored; it extended into higher fuel costs for generators, lost income, spoiled goods, and interrupted routines.
Nigeria’s power problem is not a lack of policy documents or reform announcements. It is a failure of execution and priorities. For years, governments have focused on broad reforms, privatization frameworks, and ambitious promises, while neglecting the basics of reliability, maintenance, and coordination. Electricity distribution companies routinely announce outages with little accountability, transmission lines remain fragile, and generation capacity continues to fall far short of national demand. Citizens are asked to be patient, even as they pay tariffs for power they do not receive.
The Ibadan outages also expose how disconnected energy policy has become from the realities of ordinary people. Electricity is not a luxury; it underpins productivity, health, education, and security. When power goes out, tailors cannot sew, welders cannot work, students cannot read at night, and clinics struggle to preserve medicines. Yet these human costs are rarely reflected in policy decisions. Instead, outages are framed as technical necessities rather than governance failures.
Even more concerning is how energy policy continues to push costs downward onto citizens without offering protection or alternatives. With grid electricity unreliable, Nigerians depend heavily on petrol and diesel generators. Any increase in fuel prices or levies therefore magnifies the pain of power outages. A system that fails to deliver electricity while simultaneously making self-generation more expensive traps citizens in a cycle of hardship that policy seems unwilling to break.
The problem is not unsolvable. What Nigeria lacks is a people-centred energy strategy. First, reliability must become the core measure of success, not occasional increases in megawatt figures. Infrastructure projects, whether roads or power lines, should be planned together so that one does not routinely sabotage the other. Utilities must be held to strict standards on outage duration, communication, and compensation.
Second, Nigeria must move decisively toward decentralized energy solutions. Mini-grids, community solar projects, and household renewable systems can reduce dependence on the fragile national grid and deliver power closer to where it is needed. These solutions are no longer experimental; they are practical, scalable, and better suited to Nigeria’s realities.
Third, energy reforms must protect the most vulnerable. Tariff changes and fuel-related policies should be paired with targeted support for low-income households and small businesses. Access to affordable financing for solar systems and inverters would do more for productivity than repeated promises of future grid stability.
Ultimately, the outages in Ibadan are not just about three hours of darkness. They are about years of policy choices that have failed to prioritize reliability, coordination, and human impact. Until Nigeria treats electricity as a social and economic lifeline rather than a technical afterthought, the lights will keep going out and with them, opportunities for millions of its citizens.
