Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan: The Road to Success

The launching of Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan (ETP) has come and gone. Speeches have been given, billions of dollars promised, and a plan laid out. Now begins the treacherous journey of implementation! Will Nigeria be successful?

?In my ongoing research on decarbonization strategy in Africa, there exist a big gap between planning and actual execution of climate action plans. The mitigation plans, after eloquent speeches, publicity, and funfair, are frequently not matched by actions. In this article, I touched on the key mechanism for the effective implementation of Nigeria's ETP.

?In Energy transition, Energy comes before transition literally! There must be energy abundance before a transition. Nigeria will have to address chronic and endemic energy poverty before a just, sustainable, and successful transition is conceivable.

?Governance is important in climate change mitigation programs. To unleash economic value, promote infrastructure development, and capacity building, the right government policies must be in place. More significantly, governance serves as the foundation for regulating and enforcing action plans.

?As Nigeria embarks on its Energy transition, it is critical to prioritize ETP monitoring, assessment, and reporting. It will be useful to compare "planned versus reality" on an annual basis (or periodically) through an equally broad forum as the plan's debut.

?Nigeria’s ETP can leverage the vertical integration of multilevel governance. Collaboration and alignment with sub-national governments are required for efficacy, engagement, and deployment. Building and transportation sectors, for example, are mostly the responsibility of state and municipal governments. Successful decarbonization of these industries requires active coordination with state governments, while municipal governments may assist with local engagement, education, and awareness.

?The cornerstone for deep decarbonization is socioeconomic development and poverty elimination. With vast infrastructure gaps and 45% of Nigeria's population living in poverty, any climate strategy would fail. To accomplish its climate and ETP goals, Nigeria must strive to eradicate poverty.

The development of an energy transition plan is laudable and necessitous, but its implementation is the ultimate source of sustainable value. The realistic path to successful plan execution is based on the following fundamentals: poverty eradication, economic emancipation, governance, partnership, capacity building, social infrastructure, and engagement.