The Federal Government has disclosed that between 60 and 70 per cent of Nigeria’s primary and tertiary health facilities experience frequent electricity outages or have no power supply, warning that the situation is affecting healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at the official launch of the Rural Electrification Agency-Renewable Asset Management Company (REA-RAMCO), themed “Powering Sustainable Growth: Launching Nigeria’s Renewable Asset Management Company.”
Salako said about 40 per cent of functional Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) have no access to electricity, while most of the remaining facilities receive only between six and 10 hours of power daily.
He added that teaching hospitals, which require between three and eight megawatts to operate optimally, receive an average of about five hours of grid electricity daily and spend between 40 and 50 per cent of their operating expenditure on energy, much of it on diesel.
Speaking as a physician before his role as a minister, Salako described electricity as a critical clinical input rather than an infrastructure amenity in healthcare facilities.
“In a hospital, electricity is not an amenity; it is a clinical input. It is the cold chain that keeps a vaccine potent, the concentrator that keeps a child breathing, the theatre light above a woman in obstructed labour at two in the morning, and the incubator on which a preterm infant depends.
“When power fails in a health facility, what is lost is not comfort. It is time, it is quality of service, and sometimes it is life,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Government had initiated several interventions to address energy poverty in health facilities, including the Energising Education Programme, which has benefited federal tertiary health institutions, including teaching hospitals in Maiduguri and Calabar.
He said under the Nigeria Electrification Project, 100 health facilities had received 50-kilowatt containerised solar hybrid systems, while a second phase was targeting 400 PHCs.
Salako, however, said sustainability remained a major challenge, noting that evidence from solar systems installed in Nigerian PHCs showed that more than 30 per cent became non-functional within three years of commissioning.
According to him, the problem was often not the technology but inadequate preventive maintenance, unavailable spare parts, lack of dedicated budgetary provisions and the absence of clear responsibility for systems after the completion of projects.
He said the challenge informed the Federal Government’s decision to establish the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative following the first National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector held in September 2025.
The dialogue produced a Compact for the Sustainable Electrification of Public and Private Health Facilities, signed by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Power, subnational governments, the Committee of Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors, private sector, development partners and civil society organisations.
Salako said the initiative had set a target of ensuring that at least 30 per cent of health facilities nationwide have steady electricity supply by the end of 2027.
He said the launch of RAMCO was particularly significant to the health sector because it could provide a sustainable framework for managing renewable energy infrastructure after installation.
“RAMCO is not new to us. It is, in substance, what the health sector formally asked for,” he said.
According to him, the company’s model of building, operating, optimising, aggregating, refinancing and reinvesting would transform renewable energy systems from projects with limited lifespans into managed assets with defined ownership, performance standards and maintenance schedules.
The minister proposed four areas of collaboration between RAMCO and the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative.
He called for health facilities to be recognised as a distinct asset class within RAMCO’s portfolio, beginning with teaching hospitals and other facilities already equipped with solar systems.
He also advocated the integration of RAMCO’s professional asset management system with Facility Energy Management Teams being institutionalised in hospitals with support from UK PACT.
Salako further called for RAMCO’s asset register to be integrated with health facility energy audits and for part of the capital recycled by the company to be directed towards PHCs, particularly facilities that may be less commercially attractive but critical to maternal and newborn survival.
He said the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare would offer RAMCO a seat on the Inter-Agency Technical Committee of the Power-for-Health Initiative and work towards making electricity a dedicated budget line across all levels of healthcare.
The ministry, he added, would also continue updating energy audits, enforcing certification and installation standards, including NEMSA certification, and coordinating development partners and private sector investments to reduce duplication.
Salako said sustainable asset management would also help attract private capital, development finance and climate financing into healthcare electrification.
“If renewable assets are professionally managed, performance data are transparent, maintenance is predictable, and revenue or payment structures are credible, then these assets become more attractive to long-term capital,” he said.
He said the government would no longer rely on repeated procurement to replace failed infrastructure, but would focus on preserving existing investments while mobilising additional capital for expansion.
Salako congratulated the Rural Electrification Agency, Ministry of Finance Incorporated and InfraCorp on the launch of RAMCO, pledging the full partnership of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
He said the government’s target remained unchanged: steady power in at least one-third of Nigeria’s health facilities by the end of 2027.
“We will not reach it by procurement alone. We will reach it by building assets that last, and by managing them as the national infrastructure they are,” he said.