How REA’s Abba Aliyu is making Nigeria Africa’s off-grid energy blueprint

Nigeria has no shortage of energy plans. For two decades, the country has produced policies, launched programmes, and announced targets with a regularity that has, over time, bred its own kind of cynicism. Electricity had reached fewer people than the strategies promised.

More than 85 million Nigerians remain without reliable power, a number larger than the entire population of Germany, sitting in one of the world’s most resource-rich nations.

That gap, long treated as a financing problem or a technology problem, turns out to be something more fundamental: an execution problem.

And it is precisely here, in the grinding, unglamorous work of moving money, aligning bureaucracies, and getting infrastructure into the ground, that Abba Aliyu has spent the last several years remaking the Rural Electrification Agency into something the Nigerian public sector rarely produces: an institution that delivers.

The numbers tell part of the story. In 2025 alone, the REA crystallised $1.2 billion in private sector financing commitments, secured an additional $2.65 billion funding pipeline, and took on implementation of the Federal Government’s N500 billion National Public Sector Solarisation Initiative.

At the same time, the agency leveraged the government’s “Nigeria First” policy to catalyse over $435 million in renewable energy manufacturing investment, targeting an initial 4,000 megawatts of local production capacity across participating states. For a country where announced funding and deployed funding have historically occupied different universes, the velocity is striking.

A central pillar of this transformation is the $750 million World Bank-supported Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up (DARES) programme, one of the most ambitious electrification initiatives in Nigeria’s history.

Designed to deliver electricity access to 17.5 million Nigerians, DARES combines performance-based grants with private sector investment to accelerate the deployment of mini-grids and standalone solar systems.

Implementation has already gained momentum. In 2025, the REA signed over 30 grant agreements covering more than 390 communities, accelerating isolated mini-grid deployment across rural Nigeria.

The programme is already building on the success of the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), a $550 million programme jointly funded by the World Bank and African Development Bank, through which the REA facilitated the deployment of nearly 200 renewable energy mini-grids serving more than 164,000 customers and over 1.4 million solar home systems across Nigeria, impacting more than 8 million Nigerians.

The programme also deployed approximately 35MW of hybrid renewable energy infrastructure across federal universities and institutions, while catalysing the emergence of more than 150 Renewable Energy Service Companies (RESCOs) with the capacity to build, operate, and scale decentralised energy systems nationwide.

In 2025 alone, the NEP recorded over 400 new electricity connections, impacting more than 2 million Nigerians through mini-grids, productive-use infrastructure, healthcare facilities, schools, and small businesses.

However, financing alone does not deliver electricity. One of Abba Aliyu’s most strategic interventions has been securing subnational alignment through the REA’s State-by-State Strategic Roundtable framework.

So far, the agency has directly engaged 23 state governors, with 13 more states in advanced stages of engagement, aligning state-level energy priorities with federal electrification strategies. These engagements are helping to remove longstanding implementation bottlenecks around land access, local approvals, regulatory coordination, and host-community participation.

This proactive state-level coordination is increasingly becoming one of the most important structural reforms in Nigeria’s decentralised electricity landscape following the passage of the Electricity Act 2023.

Beyond institutional coordination, the REA under Abba Aliyu has significantly expanded direct infrastructure deployment.

Through the Rural Electrification Fund (REF) Call 3, the agency formalised agreements with 32 renewable energy companies, catalysing approximately N5.8 billion in fresh private investment to deliver 28 new solar mini-grids and 37 solar home system deployments across underserved communities. These projects are expected to be fully delivered in the first quarter of 2026.

The REA also advanced implementation of the Interconnected Mini-grid Accelerated Scheme (IMAS), supported through a €9.3 million facility provided by the European Union and the German Government through GIZ’s Nigerian Energy Support Programme.

Through IMAS, the agency successfully deployed multiple mini-grids across Nigeria, including a 990kWp mini-grid in Lambata community, a 100kWp system in Adafila community in Oyo State, a 390kWp mini-grid in Barkin Ciyawa in Plateau State, a 160kWp deployment in Kwande, Plateau State, a 510kWp project across communities in Osun State, and additional mini-grid infrastructure in Cross River State covering Agbokim, Bendeghe, and Etomi communities.

These deployments are energising previously unserved communities while strengthening productive-use activities and local economic development.

Under Abba Aliyu’s leadership, the REA also deepened strategic international partnerships through the Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology (KIAT) Official Development Assistance programme. In 2025, the Korean Energy Project reached a major milestone with the completion of a 100kWp mini-grid in Rubochi community and additional deployment in Ikwa Ward within the Federal Capital Territory.

Upon completion, the KIAT-supported intervention will energise four communities, Rubochi, Ikwa, Gada Biyu, and Kugbaru, delivering a total renewable energy capacity of 1.6MWp and 3.0MWh battery storage systems. The programme is expected to directly impact approximately 7,300 residential and commercial users while supporting productive-use technologies for agriculture and rural enterprises.

The partnership also established a state-of-the-art Energy Management System at the REA headquarters, enabling real-time monitoring and evaluation of renewable energy infrastructure deployed nationwide.

Beyond mini-grid expansion, the agency has aggressively scaled solar home system penetration across rural Nigeria.

Through the United Nations Development Programme and Global Environment Facility-supported Derisking Sustainable Off-Grid Lighting Solutions (DSOLS) initiative, the REA facilitated deployment of 1,400 additional solar home systems in 2025, contributing to over 5,000 cumulative installations under the programme.