Once a darling of Nigeria’s financial elite, Adebayo Adelabu—ex-deputy governor of the Central Bank and Minister of Power since 2023—is now a man grappling with the limits of political power in a sector where even megawatts come with migraines. His résumé glows with credentials: audit stints at PwC, top finance posts at First Bank, and a failed shot at Oyo State’s governorship. But none of that experience seems to have lit a path through the darkness of Nigeria’s power crisis.
Things have recently taken a darker turn. The Presidency has quietly commissioned a ₦10 billion solar mini-grid to take Aso Rock off the national grid entirely. The symbolism is damning: even the President no longer trusts the system Adelabu was appointed to fix. It is, quite literally, a vote of no confidence powered by sunlight.
The solar pivot is not just about sustainability, it’s an indictment. If Nigeria’s top office must install a Plan B, what does that say about the system’s Plan A? Adelabu has deflected, blaming decades of decay and governments that “worked the talk,” but his technocratic exasperation now rings hollow. Despite his boasts of boosting generation to 5,800 megawatts, the public is unmoved. Transformers still burn, the national grid still collapses, tariffs still bite, and the promised Siemens revolution is stuck in Phase One limbo.
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Adelabu’s habit of invoking the failures of the past may have once offered cover. But now, the past is catching up, and so is reality. Like critics pointed out, he may understand finance, but power demands more than balance sheets and rhetoric—it requires a grid that works. As Nigerians rig their own solutions, from petrol generators to solar panels, Adelabu finds himself sidelined in a game he was meant to lead.
For a man once entrusted with printing the nation’s currency, it’s a bitter irony that he now finds himself unable to keep the lights on.
