The power assets recovery: Twenty years of institutional failure

By Olarinre Salako,

THE Federal Government’s ongoing effort to recover hundreds of containers of electricity equipment stranded at Nigerian ports, reportedly for up to 20 years, deserves commendation. It demonstrates leadership and interagency cooperation against longstanding bureaucratic inertia. On November 5, 2026, Vanguard reported that clearance had begun for more than 300 containers. On November 6, the Nigerian Tribune reported that the release of 98 containers had begun, comprising 44 at ENL Terminal, Apapa Port, and another 54 at terminals in Tin Can Island Port and other locations.

On President Tinubu’s directive, Power Minister Joseph Tegbe worked with the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and other agencies to resolve bottlenecks. Their cooperation deserves recognition. Ministry officials have inspected the equipment, with further testing and refurbishment where necessary before deployment. Yet clearance remains incomplete. How could critical power equipment lie stranded for two decades while Nigerians endured unreliable electricity? The failure raises questions about governance and public asset management.

Two decades of institutional neglect

The abandonment is indefensible. Over two decades, successive administrations have announced electricity reforms, transmission expansion programmes and infrastructure investments. Yet families, farms and factories grapple with unreliable grid supply and costly self-generation, raising household expenses and production costs for farms and factories. Indeed, on November 6, 2026, Power Minister Joseph Tegbe acknowledged widespread outages, attributing them to maintenance at Egbin Power Station, gas constraints and damage to critical transmission infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, the reported 20-year history of stranded power assets, potentially spanning the administrations of Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari and Tinubu, represents a profound institutional failure. The Buhari administration presents an instructive contradiction. In 2019, President Buhari initiated the Siemens Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), a Nigeria-Germany partnership to modernise electricity infrastructure. The programme targeted 7,000 megawatts in its first phase, 11,000 megawatts in the next, and eventually 25,000 megawatts. Why was stranded equipment not inventoried and evaluated alongside this programme?

More troublingly, in May 2023, Vanguard reported that eight transformers imported for the PPI in September 2022 remained stranded at Apapa Port because of bureaucracy and inadequate interagency cooperation. They were eventually cleared between July and August 2023.Even this flagship programme encountered the same institutional bottlenecks.

The recovery timing also implicates the President. During a December 2022 campaign luncheon in Lagos, Tinubu promised improved electricity supply and an end to estimated billing. He told Nigerians not to vote for him for a second term if he failed to deliver, unless he provided adequate reasonsfor the failure. Nearly three and a half years into his presidency, and barely ten weeks before the presidential election, why are these assets only now being recovered?

Having tied his re-election to improved electricity supply, Tinubu should have prioritised these bottlenecks within his first 100 days. His administration owes Nigerians an explanation and must face the same scrutiny as its predecessors. The larger failure extends beyond ministries and agencies to political parties and the National Assembly, which exercises legislative oversight on behalf of Nigerians.

Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, now President Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2019 to 2023, while Senate President Godswill Akpabio served as Senate Minority Leader for the PDP from 2015 to 2018. What legislative oversight was exercised over stranded power assets during their respective tenures? Both the PDP and APC, which have governed Nigeria over the past two decades, have collectively failed in this regard. Political parties should ensure policy continuity and hold their governments accountable, not merely serve as vehicles for acquiring power.

Government is a continuum, and public investments must survive political transitions.

A call for forensic investigation

The Federal Government must commission an independent forensic audit tracing every consignment from procurement and shipment through clearance, storage and intended deployment, identifying responsible institutions and officials. When did each consignment arrive, what did it cost, and why was it detained? Were unpaid duties, disputed exemptions, documentation deficiencies, funding failures, negligence or corruption involved? Who knew the equipment was stranded, when did they know, what action did they take, and why was the problem not resolved?

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