Beyond Promises: REA’s Role in Lighting Up the Renewed Hope Agenda
By Ahmed Hamis
There is a particular frustration that comes with being told the economy is improving while everyday life suggests otherwise. Many Nigerian households know the feeling. Generators still hum through the night because public electricity remains unreliable. Fuel prices remain high. Inflation has pushed food costs beyond the reach of many families. Under such conditions, government announcements of progress are often met with scepticism rather than celebration.
As Nigeria gradually enters another election season, citizens will hear many claims about performance and achievements. The real challenge is separating measurable results from political rhetoric. That requires looking beyond campaign speeches and asking three simple questions: What has been delivered? Has public money been used wisely? And will the achievements endure?
The power sector offers a useful lens through which to examine these questions. For more than two decades, electricity has remained one of Nigeria’s most stubborn development challenges. Successive administrations have promised reforms, yet millions still lack reliable access to power.
Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, however, one institution has quietly pursued a different approach. The Rural Electrification Agency (REA), led by Managing Director Abba Aliyu under the policy direction of the Federal Ministry of Power, has focused on expanding electricity access through renewable energy while laying foundations for long-term sustainability. Whether one supports the administration or not, the agency’s work deserves to be assessed on evidence rather than sentiment.
The first test is access. Electricity infrastructure is often discussed in terms of promises and projections. What truly matters is what has already been built and what is currently under construction.
Through the Energising Education Programme, the REA has deployed 82 megawatts of solar hybrid power across 22 federal universities and three teaching hospitals. Financed by the Federal Government in partnership with the World Bank and the African Development Bank, these projects represent an investment of about ₦263 billion in public educational infrastructure. These are not proposals awaiting implementation—they are functioning systems supplying electricity to institutions that previously relied heavily on unstable grid supply and expensive diesel generators.
Beyond tertiary institutions, the agency has expanded electricity distribution through thousands of transformers and several thousand kilometres of distribution lines, extending access to communities long excluded from the national grid.
Building on these foundations, the Federal Government is implementing the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up (DARES) programme, a $750 million initiative supported by the World Bank. The programme aims to provide new or improved electricity access to more than 17.5 million Nigerians through private-sector-led renewable energy solutions. Hundreds of mini-grid projects are already progressing, with more public institutions expected to benefit from dedicated renewable installations. If successfully completed, these projects will significantly expand electricity access while reducing dependence on conventional grid expansion alone.
The second test is value for money. Infrastructure should not merely provide services; it should stimulate domestic economic activity. This is where the Federal Government’s Nigeria First procurement policy becomes particularly significant. Approved in 2025, the policy encourages ministries, departments and agencies to prioritise locally manufactured goods and services whenever available.
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Renewable energy presents one of the clearest opportunities to translate that policy into tangible economic benefits. Rather than depending almost entirely on imported solar equipment, the REA has entered strategic partnerships with Nigerian manufacturers producing solar panels, battery storage systems, inverters, street lighting equipment and solar recycling solutions. Domestic solar manufacturing capacity has expanded dramatically in recent years.
This matters because renewable energy should create more than electricity—it should create industries, jobs, technical expertise and industrial capacity. Every locally manufactured solar panel or inverter installed under public projects represents investment circulating within Nigeria rather than leaving the country through imports. As the global transition to clean energy accelerates, nations that manufacture renewable technologies will capture greater economic value than those that merely consume them. Nigeria’s energy transition must therefore be measured not only by megawatts generated but also by industries created.
The third test is sustainability. One of the greatest weaknesses of public infrastructure in Nigeria has never been construction; it has been maintenance. Across the country, countless public projects have deteriorated because no effective institutional framework existed to manage them after commissioning.
The REA appears determined not to repeat that mistake. Through the establishment of the Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO), the agency seeks to ensure that renewable energy assets continue functioning long after commissioning. This may ultimately prove to be one of its most important institutional innovations. Infrastructure without maintenance soon becomes abandoned infrastructure. Sustainable development requires governance, technical expertise, predictable financing and institutional continuity.
Equally commendable is the agency’s willingness to build upon successful initiatives introduced under previous administrations rather than abandoning them for political reasons. The Nigeria Electrification Project, the Energising Education Programme and now RAMCO demonstrate an understanding that meaningful development depends on continuity rather than constant reinvention. That institutional maturity deserves recognition.
Of course, significant challenges remain. Millions of Nigerians still lack reliable electricity. Businesses continue to struggle with high energy costs. Rural communities remain underserved. Renewable energy alone cannot solve every structural weakness within Nigeria’s electricity sector. But acknowledging those realities should not prevent objective assessment where measurable progress has been made.
Public institutions should ultimately be judged not by the volume of announcements they make but by the quality, durability and impact of the projects they deliver. In that regard, the REA offers one of the clearest examples of how strategic planning, policy continuity and effective implementation can produce measurable outcomes.
Its experience also offers an important lesson for governance generally. Reforms become meaningful only when citizens can see tangible improvements in their daily lives. Solar-powered universities, mini-grids serving rural communities, locally manufactured renewable components and institutional arrangements for long-term maintenance are outcomes that can be independently verified.
As Nigerians evaluate the Renewed Hope Agenda, this should become the standard for judging every sector—not by political slogans, not by impressive statistics alone, not by campaign advertisements, but by what has been built, how effectively it serves the people, how transparently public resources have been deployed and whether those achievements will endure long after today’s political debates have ended.
The REA is not claiming that Nigeria’s electricity crisis has been solved. Rather, it is demonstrating that progress is possible when policy is matched by implementation, when institutions build on previous successes and when sustainability is prioritised alongside infrastructure delivery.
That may well be the most enduring lesson of the Renewed Hope Agenda in the power sector: the true measure of reform is not the promises made at the beginning of an administration, but the institutions strengthened, the communities empowered, the industries created and the lives improved by the time its work is judged.
On that score, the REA’s record provides one of the administration’s strongest and most measurable arguments that meaningful reform is not only possible—it is already taking shape.
Ahmed Hamis writes from Abuja
