Chairman of the Geometric Power Group, Prof. Barth Nnaji, has decried the poor state of Nigeria’s electricity sector, revealing that no major power generation project has secured financing in the last 11 years following the scrapping of key investor-backed guarantees.

Speaking on Monday in Lagos at the 19th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association for Energy Economics, Nnaji blamed inconsistent government policies for slowing growth in the power sector.

The former Minister of Power recalled that during his time in office, he worked alongside former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to establish Partial Risk Guarantee instruments that helped attract investors and finance projects such as the Azura-Edo Power Plant.

According to him, the initiative was abandoned after a change in government, halting the financing of major electricity projects ever since.

Nnaji stressed that government policy remains critical to unlocking Nigeria’s vast energy potential, noting that despite having over 210 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, the country has failed to fully harness the resource due to inadequate infrastructure and poor implementation.

He maintained that natural gas remains Nigeria’s most realistic energy option in the coming decades, describing it as a cleaner fossil fuel capable of powering economic growth while supporting the global transition to cleaner energy sources.

He also called for urgent reforms, including cost-reflective electricity tariffs, stronger power purchase agreements, tougher laws against energy theft, and improved methane management, insisting that Nigeria must maximise its abundant energy resources to address its long-standing power crisis.