No country has means of getting people out of electricity poverty – REA

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Abba Aliyu, says Nigeria now stands out globally for adopting a structured plan to tackle electricity poverty, a problem that has left millions of citizens in the dark for decades.

Speaking on Channels TV’s Morning Brief on Monday, Aliyu noted that apart from India, no other country has as many people without electricity as Nigeria.

However, he stressed that unlike other nations, Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration has rolled out a deliberate framework to change the narrative.

“In the entire world, apart from India, no country has designed a structured means of getting people out of electricity poverty like what we are implementing now,” Aliyu declared.

At the centre of this effort is the Distributed Access to Renewable Energy Scale (DARES) project, a $750 million initiative described as the largest publicly funded renewable energy programme in the world.

The project aims to provide electricity to 17.5 million Nigerians who currently have no access to power.

Aliyu clarified that the REA’s primary mandate is to operate off-grid, focusing on rural and underserved communities.

He emphasised that citizens experiencing problems with electricity distribution companies (Discos) should direct their complaints to those utilities, not the REA.

Beyond electrifying rural communities, the agency has also been assigned the responsibility of improving power supply for Nigerians in Band D and Band E, who typically get less than four hours of electricity daily.

Aliyu explained that this is being addressed through interconnected mini-grids deployed in peri-urban areas.

The REA, in collaboration with Discos, uses solar power to guarantee at least 10 hours of daytime supply, batteries to add another four hours at night, and then hands over to the Disco under a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

“With this arrangement, people move from two to four hours of electricity to at least 16 hours daily. And where the Disco fully complies with the SLA, supply could extend up to 24 hours,” he said.

The REA boss further stressed the boundaries of his agency’s mandate, noting that Nigerians in Bands A, B, and C should not hold the REA accountable for their power supply issues.

“If you are in Band D, Band E, or among the millions still without electricity, then the Rural Electrification Agency is your point of contact,” he added.