The Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power, Adebayo Olowoniyi, says Nigerians should begin to see gradual improvement in electricity supply as maintenance work on a major gas pipeline nears completion, with full restoration expected within two weeks.

Olowoniyi stated this on Thursday while appearing on Arise TV, days after the minister, Adebayo Adelabu, issued a public apology over the persistent power outages that have deepened hardship across homes, businesses, schools and industries in recent weeks.

Defending the minister’s apology, Olowoniyi said it reflected strong leadership rather than an admission of personal culpability.

“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 explained that the current crisis was largely driven by disruptions to a key gas pipeline that supplies fuel to power plants, noting that about 75 per cent of Nigeria’s electricity generation is gas-dependent.

“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.

Olowoniyi expressed confidence that the recovery process had already begun, saying improvements would be gradual but steady.

“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.

The development follows Adelabu’s public apology on Tuesday in Abuja, where he told Nigerians that the outages were caused by factors beyond the government’s immediate control but gave a firm two-week timeline for recovery.

“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.

The minister also reiterated the Federal Government’s target of ramping up electricity generation to 6,000 megawatts before the end of 2026, describing the current disruption as a temporary setback.

Nigeria’s power sector has long grappled with a combination of inadequate gas supply, ageing infrastructure, transmission bottlenecks and persistent liquidity challenges across the value chain. (PUNCH)