Nigeria cannot yet show, from publicly available evidence, that it has enough skilled people and strong enough institutions to deliver its ambitious energy transition, according to a new national research report.
The report, Can Nigeria Deliver Its Energy Transition Plan? Nigeria Energy Transition Capability Baseline 2026 was published on Tuesday by the Energy Transition Africa (ETA).
It looks at a country that has set out to attract about $500 billion in additional investment, reach 277 gigawatts of installed power capacity by 2060 and create 840,000 new jobs by 2050.
Those figures come from Nigeria’s updated Energy Transition and Investment Plan, published in November 2024. They are modelled ambitions, not money already secured or jobs already created.
ETA says Nigeria already has engineers, technicians, financiers, training institutions and electricity regulators doing important work. What is missing from the public record is a consolidated national assessment showing how many professionals the transition needs, which occupations are required, where they must be deployed and whether existing systems can supply them.
“Nigeria has a plan for the megawatts and a projection for the jobs. But where is the workforce plan connecting the two?” asked Vincent Egoro, ETA’s Executive Director and the report’s Research Lead.
“We are not saying Nigeria lacks engineers, technicians or capable institutions. We are asking a more consequential question: do we know whether we have enough of them, in the right places, at the right time, to deliver what the country is planning?”
Who will maintain the mini-grids?
One of the report’s most striking findings concerns the people needed to run and maintain mini-grids, the decentralised systems Nigeria is using to bring power to underserved communities.
ETA tested whether public data could support a defensible staffing estimate for a defined mini-grid operations function. It could not.
Widely cited employment figures lump together construction, operations and central support jobs, so they cannot show how many people are needed to keep installations running over time.
“A mini-grid can be commissioned, photographed and counted. But who will maintain it in five years?” Egoro asked.
“How many technicians will be needed? Where will they come from? Who is measuring that demand before the infrastructure is installed? These are practical questions that determine whether electricity investments continue delivering value long after commissioning.”
The finding does not mean mini-grid operators lack maintenance staff. It points to a gap in the public information needed to plan for long-term operations.
State regulators take on more, with little evidence on readiness
The report also questions the pace at which electricity regulation is moving from federal to state level. Following the Electricity Act 2023, states have begun taking over responsibilities once concentrated in Abuja. By July 2026, 16 states had completed the regulatory transition.
These bodies must now handle tariff determination, licensing, consumer protection, technical oversight and market regulation. ETA found that public evidence on their specialist staffing, workloads, retention and performance is too thin to judge whether their capacity is keeping up.
The concern is not whether the regulators exist, but whether their ability to manage increasingly complex duties can be independently assessed. That matters to investors, electricity companies and consumers, since regulators shape how markets function and whether investments can operate under predictable rules.
Ninety-six assessments, none fully measured
ETA examined 16 major energy transition requirements across six capability families, producing 96 evidence-assessment cells. None could be classified as fully measured against the report’s capability-adequacy standard.
ETA stresses this does not mean Nigeria failed 96 tests or lacks the capabilities it needs. It means public evidence does not yet allow a complete judgement on whether they are sufficient.
The report identifies functioning institutions, technical training systems, certification arrangements, regulatory mechanisms and workforce information systems.
It also traces electricity sector manpower studies in Nigeria back to the 1960s and points to existing domestic approaches that could help build a more reliable national picture.
The core problem, the report says, is not a lack of institutions or training programmes but the absence of a demonstrated link between investment requirements, workforce demand, current capabilities and deployment timelines.
What ETA recommends
ETA calls for a coordinated national assessment of workforce and institutional capability, starting with the power sector.
It would link existing government, industry, training, regulatory and labour market information to the requirements of actual energy projects, showing which occupations are needed, in what numbers, where and when, and where shortages or institutional constraints demand action.
The report does not propose a new government agency or a blanket national training target. It argues instead for making better use of the information and institutions Nigeria already has.
“The question is no longer simply how many people we can train,” Egoro said. “It is how many people the transition needs, what they must be able to do, where they must work and whether our institutions can sustain that capability over time.”
About the research
The report is a structured, purposive desk-based assessment of publicly accessible documents, with an evidence cut-off of 20 September 2026.
It covers power, cooking, transport, industry, and oil and gas, with an in-depth look at the power sector.
It is not a national workforce census or a review of unpublished government records, and it distinguishes between capabilities shown to be absent and capabilities whose adequacy cannot be established from public evidence.
