By Odion Omonfoman
President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Dr. Rilwan Lanre Babalola as Special Adviser on Power and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power Sector Reset and Restoration is a clear signal that the President wants urgency in a sector where Nigerians seem to have lost faith in getting reliable electricity.
According to the State House press statement of April 30th, the Task Force “will operate under a direct presidential mandate as a high-level, delivery-focused vehicle to restore discipline, efficiency, and commercial viability across the power sector, while ensuring effective coordination among relevant ministries, departments, and agencies” as well as to drive a comprehensive reset of the electricity sector.
Babalola is not a stranger to the terrain. He has been Minister of Power before. He understands the challenges that have kept Nigeria’s electricity sector permanently on the edge of reform. Babalola brings the discipline, experience and presidential access required to unblock a sector that has frustrated many administrations. However, Nigeria’s power sector has never suffered from a shortage of committees, roadmaps, task forces or presidential initiatives.
In this regard, the first question is what the roles of the taskforce would be and what will the taskforce do differently to reset the sector. Will the Taskforce strengthen the institutions already created by law, or will it become another powerful room in Abuja where decisions are taken outside the institutions meant to administer the power sector?
Statutory Functions of the Minister of Power
Under the Electricity Act, 2023, the Minister of Power is responsible for the determination, formulation and monitoring of federal government policy for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). The Minister may issue general policy directions to the NERC on electricity matters, including overall system planning and coordination, but such directions must not conflict with the Act or the Constitution. The Minister also advises the Federal Government on the power sector, and policy directives on cross-border electricity trading, amongst other functions.
The Electricity Act also assigns the Ministry of Power, a central planning and coordination role. The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Power, is to prepare and publish the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan (NEIP-SIP), as a comprehensive framework to guide federal and state governments, market participants, investors and consumers through the sector’s transition.
Areas of Potential Conflicts
Against the backdrop of the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023, I have highlighted areas of possible conflict between the mandate of the Presidential TaskForce and the Minister/Ministry of Power.
The first area of potential conflict is policy ownership. The Task Force has been given a mandate that touches sector reset, commercial viability, revenue assurance, tariff integrity and growth zones. These are not minor administrative matters. They go to the heart of the national electricity policy. The Electricity Act already places federal policy leadership in the hands of the Minister and the Ministry. If the Task Force begins to define policy outside the Ministry, the country may end up with two policy centres: one statutory and one presidential.
The second area is regulatory independence. Tariff integrity, market discipline, licence enforcement, consumer protection and cost-reflective pricing are regulatory matters under NERC and State Electricity Regulators. The presidential task force may identify regulatory failures needing urgent reforms and recommend action, but NERC/SERCs must remain the body that makes regulatory decisions through lawful procedure. Otherwise, a reform designed to restore discipline could create a new ground for litigation, investor anxiety and regulatory disorder.
The third area is grid and market operation. Restoring grid discipline and market integrity in the NESI is necessary. But the Taskforce should not become the dispatcher, market operator or system operator by another name. Grid discipline has technical, commercial and legal dimensions. If the Task Force starts directing dispatch, market settlement, load allocation or enforcement by executive pressure, it may solve one problem and create three: unclear accountability, weakened market rules and diminished operator independence.
The fourth area is federal-state jurisdiction. The Electricity Act has opened the door for state electricity markets. States are now empowered to establish state electricity regulatory authorities to regulate intrastate electricity activities, including generation, distribution, supply, trading, tariffs, service quality and consumer protection within their jurisdictions. NERC continues to regulate where states have not assumed authority and retains jurisdiction over interstate, national grid and international electricity activities. This means that any reset of the power sector that ignores the States will be incomplete from the beginning and would produce ineffective reform outcomes.
The fifth area is procurement and project execution. The Ministry and MDAs under it already have procurement and project execution structures. Unless there are clear rules guiding its actions, if the Task Force becomes the new unofficial procurement gateway, it will create uncertainty, weaken transparency and expose the reset programme to avoidable controversy.
The sixth area is planning. The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Power, is mandated under the Electricity Act to prepare and publish the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan, subject to Federal Executive Council approval. That policy must not be pushed aside by a 90-day blueprint. The blueprint should be a delivery instrument under the policy, not a replacement for it.
Addressing these potential conflicts
First, the Presidency should publish clear terms of reference for the Task Force. Those terms should state, without ambiguity, that the Task Force is a delivery and coordination mechanism, not a parallel ministry, not a regulator, not a procurement authority and not an operator. It should be empowered to identify blockages, coordinate agencies, monitor execution and report directly to the President. But policy must still pass through the Minister and Ministry. Regulation must still pass through NERC and state regulators. Procurement must still follow procurement law. System operation must remain with the proper licensed entities.
Second, the Minister of Power should be the policy anchor of the Task Force. Babalola can chair the delivery effort and report directly to the President, but the Minister must be structurally embedded as co-chair. Unlike before, the Task Force secretariat should sit jointly with the Ministry, not outside it as a rival bureaucracy.
Third, the 90-day blueprint should be made an implementation annex to the National Integrated Electricity Policy, not a parallel plan. The NIEP is the statutory roadmap; the Task Force should refine the plan where necessary, select time-bound actions from it, identify blockers, assign owners, and escalate only what cannot be solved within normal ministerial and regulatory channels. Adopting the NIEP will also prevent the familiar Nigerian disease of policy multiplication: one government, multiple roadmaps and no improvement.
Fourth, the NESI needs urgent regulatory reforms. However, any regulatory reforms must preserve NERC’s regulatory independence. The Task Force may request data. It may present evidence. It may recommend that NERC act more quickly. But NERC must make regulatory decisions through lawful processes. Where regulatory action is required, NERC should be made to act publicly within its rules and procedures. There must be public consultations as well.
Fifth, the reset must include states as partners. This point is perhaps the most important recommendation as failure to include states in the reset of the power sector will deliver a failed reform. There should be state electricity compacts defining what the Federal Government will do, what the state government will do, what DisCos or franchisees must deliver, etc.
Finally, the Task Force should have a sunset clause. A 90-day assignment should not quietly become a permanent institution not created by law. The country has seen too many temporary arrangements acquire permanent appetite.
Conclusion
The new Task Force can be a turning point in resetting the sector. But the reset must not reset the law. It must also not create two captains for one ship. This is why the Presidential Task Force, however well-intentioned, must be handled with institutional care. A presidential task force that sees its mandate as a parallel Ministry, will create confusion. A task force that begins to issue instructions across the sector without clear terms of reference aligned with the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023 will become part of the problem it was created to solve.
In closing, let me use this medium to congratulate Dr. Rilwan Lanre Babalola on his appointment as the Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce. I wish him and other members of the taskforce, godspeed and good success on this very important national assignment.
Odion Omonfoman is the Lead Consultant on Power to the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and Managing Director of New Hampshire Capital Ltd. He can be reached on orionomon@outlook.com
