… As Health, Power Ministers say reform will end hospital outages
By Chioma Obinna
The Federal Government on Monday launched a major investment-driven reform to tackle persistent electricity failures in Nigerian hospitals, targeting at least 30 per cent uninterrupted power supply across healthcare facilities by 2027 under the Nigeria Power for Health Initiative (NPHI).
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, and the Minister of Power, Mr. Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe who disclosed this in Lagos at the National Healthcare Electrification Investor Matchmaking Forum said the reform will end hospital outages.
On his part, Salako said the initiative is designed to move Nigeria from policy discussions to investment execution in addressing energy poverty in the health sector. “Energy poverty is holding back our reforms and slowing down our healthcare transformation agenda,” he said.
Salako noted that unreliable electricity remains a major barrier to healthcare delivery, affecting operating theatres, cold chain systems, incubators, diagnostics, blood banking and emergency response services. “Electricity is not merely a utility in a healthcare facility. When electricity fails, healthcare delivery stagnates,” he said.
He warned that grid instability, voltage fluctuations and rising diesel costs continue to strain hospital operations, with energy spending consuming a significant share of health facility budgets.
The Minister explained that the NPHI was developed after a national stakeholder dialogue involving the health, power, finance, environment and private sectors, and has been approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a national framework for healthcare electrification.
He said the programme represents a shift away from traditional government and donor-funded infrastructure delivery models that often fail due to poor maintenance and lack of sustainability.
“Too often, systems were procured, commissioned and celebrated, only to deteriorate due to weak maintenance and lack of lifecycle financing. The NPHI is designed to break that cycle,” he said.
Under the new framework, he explained, healthcare facilities will no longer manage energy infrastructure directly, but will instead rely on private sector Energy Service Providers under an Energy-as-a-Service model.
Salako said although the current phase focuses on federal tertiary hospitals, the programme will extend to primary, secondary and private health facilities nationwide.
He disclosed that a governance structure has been established, including an Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee, a 24-member Inter-Agency Technical Committee, Facility Energy Management Teams and a dedicated project secretariat under the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
He also acknowledged support from the United Kingdom Partnership for Accelerating Climate Transition (UK PACT) and Landell Mills International in developing the initiative.
In his keynote address, the Minister of Power, Mr. Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe, said reliable electricity is a fundamental pillar of healthcare delivery, noting that no health system can function effectively without stable power supply. “We are not merely discussing electricity; we are discussing saving lives and removing the impediment to quality healthcare delivery,” he said.
He said the initiative aligns with the Federal Government’s Power Sector Reforms and the Renewed Hope Agenda, adding that it provides a platform to integrate energy planning into healthcare infrastructure development.
Tegbe said the programme will deploy grid enhancement, embedded generation, renewable and hybrid energy systems tailored to health facilities, while improving efficiency and coordination across sectors.
He described the healthcare electrification programme as a strategic investment opportunity, driven by demand across 35,000 health facilities nationwide.
“The market is not a projection. It is 35,000 facilities serving over 200 million Nigerians,” he said.
He said the government is moving away from unsustainable grant-based infrastructure delivery toward blended finance models combining public funds, private capital and development finance.
According to him, the Electricity Act provides a regulatory framework for power purchase agreements, mini-grid licensing and state-level participation to support investor confidence.
Tegbe said the government is already deploying solar mini-grids and hybrid systems to health facilities under existing programmes and will expand implementation under the NPHI framework.
He also said the focus is initially on tertiary and secondary health facilities due to their larger patient load, while stressing that primary healthcare centres will also be covered through parallel interventions.
“We focus first on facilities that serve the larger population, but we are not excluding anyone in the health system,” he said.
