Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has revealed that the African Development Bank(AfDB) will fund the Nigerian Electrification Project (NEP) with $250 million.
The minister disclosed this on Thursday September 14, 2023 on social media platform X(formerly twitter), while sharing an update on the positive results of the Bilateral Cooperation meeting held at the ongoing “Just Energy Transition and Agricultural Transformation for Africa” conference in Busan, South Korea.
The assurance came a few hours after the country was plunged into a brief blackout in the early hours of Thursday due to a fire outbreak at Kainji/Jebba 330kv line 2 from the explosion.
The NEP is a nationwide initiative designed to deliver energy access to unserved and underserved communities in the country.
Speaking about the NEP, from the conference presided over by AfDB President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the minister said the Bank was ready to disburse the fund.
The gathering assembled key stakeholders to discuss pivotal energy and agricultural transformations for the African continent.
“This initiative aims to establish operational capacity across the entire value chain, facilitating project prioritization,” Adelabu wrote.
“AfDB also confirmed readiness to disburse a previously approved $250 million fund for the Nigeria Electrification Project under the Rural Electrification Agency and extended support to Northern Nigerian states through the $ 20 billion 10,000MW Northern Africa Desert to Power fund.”
More than 600,000 people, approximately 100,000 households, 70,000 MSMEs, and eight universities are expected to be beneficiaries of new or improved access to electricity services from the project.
It will also create an enabling environment for private sector involvement, with special attention on advancing opportunities for women through various integrated activities such as the collection of sex-disaggregated data and gender-targeted marketing.
Meanwhile, the Energy Progress Report 2022, released by Tracking SDG 7, revealed that Nigeria has the lowest access to electricity globally, with approximately 92 million out of the country’s 200 million population lacking access to power.
