Tinubu to Spend N10bn on Aso Villa Solar Project as Nigerians Struggle with Power Outages

The Federal Government has allocated N10 billion for a solar mini-grid at the Presidential Villa in the 2025 approved budget, despite comparable international examples costing significantly less.

The project, officially titled “Solarisation of the Villa with Solar Mini Grid,” was listed as the sole reason for a N10bn increase in the capital expenditure component of the State House budget, which rose from N33.55bn to N43.55bn. The total allocation to the State House now stands at N57.11bn, up from the originally proposed N47.11bn.

The planned solar project is expected to reduce dependence on Nigeria’s increasingly unstable national grid and slash energy costs at the Villa, which reportedly spends about N6bn annually on power.

However, comparisons have sparked nationwide scepticism. In an article by Aurora Solar, it was estimated that a 320kW solar system sufficient to power the entire White House in Washington, D.C., would cost only about $1 million — the equivalent of N1.5 billion using current exchange rates. This figure is over six times lower than the N10bn earmarked for the Villa’s solar grid.

Amid Nigeria’s deepening fiscal challenges and a growing list of economic challenges, including rising fuel prices, electricity tariff hikes, and record inflation.

In 2024, electricity tariffs for Band A consumers — which includes the State House — rose from N68/kWh to a peak of N225/kWh before being adjusted to N209.5/kWh in July, Punch reported.

This pushed government institutions’ energy costs sharply upward. Meanwhile, the Villa was named among top debtors by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, owing N923.87m at one point before the figure was revised to N342.35m and ordered to be cleared by President Bola Tinubu.

Also raising eyebrows is the N1.99bn allocated for diesel to power generators at the State House in the same 2025 budget, despite the ongoing push for solar alternatives. Between March and May 2024, records show N88.75m was spent on diesel alone.

It will be recalled that recently, despite recurring national grid collapses in the past two years, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, claimed that Nigeria’s power generation increased by 2,000 megawatts under the current administration.

Adelabu made this assertion while receiving a delegation from the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), led by its president, Margret Oguntala, in Abuja. According to the minister, Nigeria’s power generation, which reportedly remained stagnant at around 4,000MW in 2022, reached 6,003MW.

Also, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Obafemi Hamzat, lamented that the utility company supplying electricity to his quarters raised his bill from N2.7m in March to N29m in April.

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