Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) for the 2027 election, has made a striking electricity pledge, saying Nigeria would need more than 60,000 megawatts (MW) to get the economy “back to work properly” and promising to provide that level of power in less than three years if elected. Sowore also said his proposed system would move away from the present national-grid structure toward regional grids powered by solar, gas, hydro and biogas.
From 5,000MW Reality to 60,000MW Promise
The scale of the proposal becomes clearer when placed beside Nigeria’s present electricity figures. The Federal Ministry of Power recorded peak generation of about 4,896MW on January 27, 2026, while the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission reported that only about 4,286MW was available for dispatch on average in April from 13,625MW of installed grid-connected capacity.
That means Sowore’s proposed 60,000MW target would represent a dramatic expansion from the electricity currently available to the national system. Nigeria’s power sector has also continued to face problems involving gas supply, generation availability, transmission constraints and grid reliability. In February 2026, Reuters reported that gas shortages had pushed national generation down to around 4,300MW.
The Regional-Grid Gamble
Sowore says his answer is not simply to build more generating plants, but to change how electricity is produced and distributed. His proposal calls for dismantling the existing national-grid model and replacing it with regional grids that can exploit different local energy resources.
The mathematics of the proposal, however, is where the political electricity gets interesting. Nigeria is currently targeting 6,000MW of generation by the end of 2026, according to the Federal Government, meaning a 60,000MW system would be roughly ten times that target. Whether such an expansion could be achieved in less than three years would depend on enormous investment in generation, transmission, distribution, fuel supply and regional infrastructure.
For now, Sowore has placed a very large number on the political scoreboard. His statement has turned electricity from another campaign promise into a countdown: less than three years to move from a system struggling around the 4,000–6,000MW range to one exceeding 60,000MW. OGM News NG will continue to watch the proposal, the numbers behind it and how other political actors respond as the 2027 election approaches.
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