Former Bayelsa East lawmaker, Ben Murray-Bruce, has called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently overhaul Nigeria’s electricity sector, arguing that the 2013 privatisation of the industry has failed to deliver reliable power supply. Murray-Bruce made the call in an open letter to the President posted on his X handle on……
Former Bayelsa East lawmaker, Ben Murray-Bruce, has called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently overhaul Nigeria’s electricity sector, arguing that the 2013 privatisation of the industry has failed to deliver reliable power supply.
Murray-Bruce made the call in an open letter to the President posted on his X handle on Saturday, August 29, 2026, where he urged the Federal Government to take decisive action to address the persistent collapse of electricity generation and distribution.
The former senator said recent data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) showed a wide gap between the country’s installed generation capacity and the electricity actually available for dispatch.
According to him, NERC reported in April that of the 13,625 megawatts of installed generation capacity, only 4,286MW was available for dispatch, representing about 31 per cent.
He further claimed that 10 of the 28 power plants accounted for 81 per cent of total electricity generated.
Murray-Bruce also cited a grid collapse on August 22, when available generation reportedly dropped from more than 4,000MW in the afternoon to 1,132MW at about 8:30pm.
He said 12 generating stations, including Egbin, Geregu, Kainji, Shiroro and Zungeru, were producing no power at the time.
“That is not an industry, Your Excellency. That is a rumour of an industry,” he said.
Murray-Bruce argued that the fundamental problem dated back to the 2013 power sector privatisation, which he described as a transfer of ownership without the financial capacity required to properly operate and expand the assets.
“The 2013 privatisation was not a reform. It was a transfer of custody,” he said.
According to him, the investors who acquired the generation and distribution companies had sufficient resources to purchase the assets but lacked the financial capacity required to operate and develop them.
“Owning a power station and capitalising a power station are two different economic acts, and we confused them,” he said.
The former lawmaker argued that electricity distribution companies operating in a country with a population of about 240 million people require significantly stronger balance sheets and access to capital than their current financial capacity allows.
He said Nigeria should have sold the assets to major multinational operators with the technical expertise, global reach and financial capacity to invest billions of dollars in the sector before expecting returns.
“Instead we handed a national utility to a consortium of gentlemen with bank loans,” Murray-Bruce said.
He urged the President to “start the dance on electricity”, insisting that the Federal Government could no longer ignore the structural weaknesses in the power sector.
