FG Moves To End Blackouts In Hospitals As New Inter-Ministerial Committee Takes Off
What happens when the lights go out in the middle of surgery?
For years, that terrifying question has haunted Nigeria’s health workers and patients.
On Monday, the Federal Government took a decisive step to end that fear, inaugurating the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee of the Nigeria Power for Health Initiative (NPHI), a national plan to guarantee uninterrupted electricity in hospitals.
At the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Abuja, Minister of State for Health, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, described the power crisis in hospitals as a “health emergency” that has cost lives and crippled essential services.
“No Nigerian should be left in the dark while seeking healthcare,” he warned, noting that electricity is as critical as oxygen for patient survival, from labour wards to emergency theatres.
The tension behind the announcement is real: lifesaving equipment failing mid-procedure, babies delivered by torchlight, and health workers forced to improvise in impossible conditions.
But the government insists help is here.
The NPHI creates a powerful new structure, from an inter-ministerial steering team to facility-level energy managers, designed to coordinate all electrification efforts in the health sector.
Backed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and shaped by September’s National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power, the initiative aims to deliver sustainable energy solutions, mobilise private sector finance and ensure accountability.
Inaugurating the committee on behalf of the President, Dr Salako called the mission “a duty to save women and children from dying due to power cuts.”
Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, added that Nigeria’s new electricity reforms, decentralised by the 2023 Electricity Act, now give states, LGs and private investors room to drive solutions.
He said generation capacity has risen to 14 gigawatts, with grid improvements reducing disturbances in 2025, while renewables will help reach rural hospitals.
The target is bold-Reliable power supply in at least 50% of all Nigerian health facilities within two years.
Permanent Secretary Daju Kachollom described the initiative as a “historic shift from talk to action,” stressing that patients must never suffer because a hospital ran out of power.
With partnerships from the World Bank, private investors and multiple ministries, the NPHI marks one of the most serious attempts yet to ensure that health facilities, from community clinics to tertiary hospitals, stay lit, functional and lifesaving.
Because in the end, this is more than electricity. It is about the power to save lives.
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