Nigerians may soon begin to experience steady improvements in electricity supply as ongoing maintenance on a critical gas pipeline approaches completion, according to the Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power, Adebayo Olowoniyi.
Speaking on Arise TV on Thursday, March 26, Olowoniyi said full restoration of gas flow, and by extension, stronger power generation, is expected within the next two weeks.
His remarks come shortly after the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, publicly apologised for the persistent outages that have strained households, businesses, schools and industries nationwide.
Olowoniyi defended the minister’s apology, describing it as a demonstration of leadership rather than a personal admission of fault.
“I think, first of all, I’d like to start with the apology from the Honourable Minister, which we believe is all about taking leadership in the sector.
“Not necessarily directly his fault for the challenges that we have, but as the Minister of Power, he just took—it was the right leadership step to say, okay, I take ownership of this issue, and I’m going to prefer a solution that would ensure power supply comes back in the shortest available time,” Olowoniyi said.
He attributed the recent electricity shortfall primarily to maintenance work on a major gas pipeline that feeds power plants, noting that roughly 75 per cent of Nigeria’s electricity generation relies on gas.
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“One of the major gas pipelines in Nigeria was undergoing maintenance, and gradually that process is being completed.
“We’re sure that within the next two weeks, full gas pressure will be back on the gas pipelines, and the power plants will be able to get enough gas at least to go back to their level of generation that they had in the last two to three months,” he said.
According to him, early signs of recovery are already emerging, with gradual improvements expected to continue over the coming weeks.
“I would already say that from yesterday, we would have gradually started to see some improvement as the pressure on the pipeline gradually starts to build up, and we will see continuous improvement over the next couple of weeks,” he said.
First Daily reports that earlier in the week, Adelabu had issued an apology in Abuja, explaining that the outages were driven by factors outside the government’s immediate control but assuring Nigerians that relief was imminent.
“I can tell you, with the committee that we have set up, and commitments from gas suppliers, and the timeline for repair of the gas pipelines, two weeks from now, we should start seeing improvements in supply. Two weeks,” Adelabu had said.
He also reaffirmed the Federal Government’s ambition to boost electricity generation to 6,000 megawatts before the end of 2026, describing the current disruption as temporary.
Nigeria’s power sector continues to face longstanding structural challenges, including insufficient gas supply, ageing infrastructure, transmission constraints and ongoing financial pressures across the electricity value chain.