Powering Nigeria

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to the World Bank, more than 80 million people in Nigeria still lack access to electricity, making it the country with the largest energy access deficit in the world. But even among those connected to the grid, many struggle daily to keep the power going. Blackouts are frequent, infrastructure is fragile, and generators have become a lifeline for homes and businesses alike. Journalist and presenter Samuel Okocha hears from Nigerians about how unreliable electricity affects their lives. He speaks to economists, politicians, and renewable energy experts to understand the roots of the crisis, and how decentralisation and power theft are complicating efforts to fix it. In Abuja, Samuel visits his local dry cleaner and barber to see how they are coping with constant outages. Samuel also finds resilience. Across Nigeria, people are turning to solar energy and small-scale solutions, building their own systems to meet their needs.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:08.5	It's Africa's most populated country and one of its biggest economies, but according to the
0:15.1	latest figures, over 85 million people here in Nigeria have no access to electricity, while millions more struggle
0:24.1	to keep the lights on. Right now, I'm in Lagos, and I tell you, the power situation here,
0:29.6	I wouldn't give it a pass mark. We have like 12 hours in a day at a stretch. Currently, I don't
0:34.6	even have power. I'm powering my devices right now on a generator set.
0:40.0	That has been going on for the past two hours. People have increasingly taken the lead and generating
0:45.7	their own power. There's a little of patronage for home solar systems. Danera is in the tropical
0:51.5	zone. God has blessed us with good sunshine, so we have the resources.
0:56.1	If the government can help in reducing the prices of the solar, I think it will go a long way to help people like us.
1:02.5	But is the constant battle to maintain a regular and sustainable supply hampering these countries' progress.
1:10.0	This is the documentary, Powering Nigeria from
1:13.6	the BBC World Service.
1:19.6	Hi, I'm Samuel Ococcha, a journalist based in Abuja in central Nigeria.
1:28.4	For anyone living here, power, or often the lack of it, is a daily preoccupation.
1:34.8	It shapes how we live, how we work, and how we connect.
1:39.3	According to the World Bank, Nigeria has the largest electricity access deficit in the world.
1:46.3	Abdulaziz Fagi is their project leader for energy in Nigeria.
1:50.7	I describe it to people as a continent within a continent.
1:54.2	It's a population of close to 220, 230, depending on the estimates, million people, of which upwards of 85, 86 million
2:05.1	people don't have access to electricity.
2:08.3	So you're talking about a massive gap in access to a basic fundamental service that allows teachers
	...

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