Powering Nigeria Infrastructure Fund 1

Over the past decade, I have built systems that help African businesses move money, verify identity, prevent fraud, and reach customers at scale. At Moniepoint, I helped build a distribution network that carried financial services into communities the traditional system did not serve well. At Prembly, I have worked on the trust layer that allows businesses to know who they are dealing with and transact with greater confidence.

Those experiences shaped a conviction. Digital infrastructure can remove enormous friction, but it cannot manufacture electricity. A payment rail, identity platform, factory, cold room, hospital, or data centre is only as reliable as the power beneath it. Nigeria has built remarkable businesses on top of an energy system that still asks each enterprise to become its own utility.

I do not see that only as a development problem. I see recurring, financeable demand for infrastructure that lowers operating costs, strengthens earnings, and expands what businesses and workers can produce.

The system is constrained, not the demand

Nigeria's grid has substantial nameplate capacity, but too little of it becomes dependable power for the customer. NERC's April 2026 operational factsheet reported 13,625 MW of installed grid-connected capacity. Only 4,286 MW was available for dispatch, and average output was approximately 4,048 MW. The issue is not simply how many generating plants exist. Fuel availability, plant condition, transmission limits, distribution losses, liquidity, and commercial discipline all determine what finally reaches a meter.

Access is also incomplete. The World Bank's latest published indicator places electricity access at 62.5 percent of the population in 2024. Its review of Nigeria's mini-grid market estimates that more than 80 million people still lack access. Businesses that are connected often face a different problem. Their connection does not guarantee the quality or duration of supply required to operate.

The practical result is a parallel energy economy. Companies buy generators, fuel, maintenance, inverters, batteries, and replacement equipment. They absorb downtime and voltage damage. These costs are dispersed across operating budgets, which can make them look temporary. In reality, they are a recurring payment for unreliable infrastructure.

The investable wedge

Powering Nigeria Infrastructure Fund 1 is being formed around distributed power for commercial and industrial users. The initial focus is not utility scale generation built on speculative demand. It is energy infrastructure located close to businesses that already consume power, already pay for alternatives, and can demonstrate the operating need to sign a credible long-term contract.

The systems may combine solar generation, storage, efficient thermal backup, and energy management technology. The final design should follow the customer's load profile, operating hours, service requirement, site conditions, and fuel economics. I am not attached to a technology slogan. I am attached to dependable electrons, disciplined underwriting, and assets that solve a measured problem.

Commercial and industrial demand is an underwriting discipline, not simply a description of buildings. An anchor load may come from a factory, cold room, clinic, logistics facility, or a fleet of productive electric assets. In each case, demand must be recurring, measurable, and concentrated enough to support the infrastructure. It must also be visible before capital is deployed.

The commercial model is straightforward. A project company finances and operates the asset. The customer buys power or pays for availability under a contracted arrangement. The investment case comes from the spread between the customer's all-in cost of unreliable energy and the cost of delivering a more efficient service. That spread must be demonstrated at each site. It should never be assumed from a national average.

Productive mobility can become an anchor load

Across African cities, mobility is both an essential service and a source of income. Riders and small fleet operators already pay for fuel, maintenance, downtime, and vehicle access. Electrification can improve those economics, but the vehicle alone is not the infrastructure thesis. The investable system sits behind it. That system includes batteries, solar-enabled charging or swapping stations, controls, metering, maintenance, and software that makes energy use and payment performance visible.

An active fleet can provide the initial demand needed to support a charging station. The same site may later serve nearby businesses or communities where the economics and regulation allow it. That expansion should follow measured demand. Future community use should not be required to make the first installation viable.

The current operating test is deliberately small. Deployed electric bikes are actively tracked for utilisation, structured repayments, battery behaviour, and maintenance. There have been no payment defaults to date, although this is far too early to infer portfolio-level performance. The distributed station is the next underwriting question, not a proven result. The test is intended to establish its likely anchor load, collection behaviour, battery replacement needs, and the revenue supported by each unit of infrastructure capital before any claim of scale is made.

Why the timing has improved

Three conditions are converging. First, the cost and performance of distributed solar, storage, controls, and metering have improved. Second, customers understand the cost of unreliable power because they already carry it every month. Third, regulation is creating clearer routes for private generation.

Nigeria's 2026 mini-grid rules allow isolated projects up to 5 MW and interconnected projects up to 10 MW per site. The framework adds clearer site protection, grid-arrival provisions, portfolio applications, cost-reflective tariff methods, and defined approval timelines. Embedded generation remains another route for projects that supply through distribution infrastructure.

Public programmes are also validating the market rather than replacing it. The $750 million DARES programme targets electricity access for 17.5 million Nigerians through private sector-led distributed renewable energy. That is useful evidence of policy direction and market infrastructure. It is not a substitute for project-level commercial judgment.

How projects will be underwritten

The quality of the customer matters as much as the quality of the equipment. A technically sound asset can still be a poor investment if the buyer cannot pay, the contract is weak, the site lacks permits, or imported equipment creates an unmanaged currency mismatch.

The strategy begins with assets where demand is visible before capital is deployed. Priority users include operating businesses and economic clusters with steady loads, material power expenditure, and clear consequences when supply fails. Cold-chain facilities, light manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, hospitality, commercial property, digital infrastructure, and productive mobility fleets can fit this profile. Sector labels alone do not qualify a project.

Where the return should come from

The return should come from contracted cash flow and operational improvement, not from hoping that scarce infrastructure becomes fashionable. A well-structured asset can reduce a customer's energy cost, improve uptime, and make expenditure more predictable. The project captures part of that value through a power purchase, energy service, lease, or availability agreement.

When demand comes from a mobility or operating platform, the energy assets must remain identifiable and governed by a clear commercial agreement. The use or availability of those assets should repay the infrastructure capital. The investment should not depend on the operating company achieving a higher future valuation. This separation allows new categories of productive demand to qualify without weakening the fund's discipline.

Portfolio value can also be created after installation. Better procurement, remote monitoring, preventive maintenance, load optimisation, common spare parts, insurance, and disciplined collections can improve performance across several sites. Once a portfolio has operating history and contracted revenue, it may also become suitable for lower-cost refinancing.

This is why the strategy begins with commercial and industrial anchor loads. The IEA notes that businesses consume nearly three times more energy per mini-grid connection than households. Productive users provide the demand density that makes distributed systems more financeable while supporting wider economic activity.

The risks are real

Nigeria's need for power does not make every power project investable. Currency depreciation can raise equipment and debt costs. Customers can weaken. Regulation can move across federal and state jurisdictions. Tariff assumptions can fail. Equipment can underperform. Gas or diesel supply can be interrupted. Community, land, security, and interconnection issues can delay an otherwise sound project.

The response is not optimism. It is structure. Match currency where possible. Use conservative generation and collection assumptions. Require appropriate customer security. Stage capital against milestones. Diversify by customer and location. Insure what can be insured. Monitor every asset. Preserve step-in rights. Build contracts that explain what happens when the world does not follow the base case.

What this fund is not

It is not a bet that one technology will solve Nigeria's power sector. It is not a collection of speculative sites waiting for customers. It is not dependent on a single subsidy programme. It is not an attempt to rebuild the national grid privately.

It is a focused effort to finance useful assets close to proven demand, one bankable project at a time, and to compound the operating knowledge required to build a durable portfolio.

Why I am building it

My career has moved from code to products, from products to distribution, and from distribution to infrastructure. The pattern is consistent. The most valuable systems are the ones other people can build on.

At Moniepoint, distribution turned software into financial access. At Prembly, trust infrastructure allows digital businesses to transact safely. Power is more fundamental. When electricity is reliable, a factory can add a shift, a clinic can protect its cold chain, a logistics operator can plan, and a technology company can keep its systems online. An asset can earn a return when the customer becomes more productive.

That alignment is the conviction behind Powering Nigeria Infrastructure Fund 1. I want to build infrastructure whose economic usefulness is visible in the cash flow of the businesses it powers.

Formation and execution

The fund is currently sponsor-led by me. I bring a decade of work across software, financial-services distribution, identity, compliance, and company building in African markets. That operating background shapes how I assess demand, distribution, customer quality, and whether infrastructure creates measurable economic value.

Formation includes assembling the investment and operating capability required for the mandate. No project should advance without accountable expertise across development, engineering, contracts, regulation, construction, asset management, and finance. The named team and governance structure will be published as those roles are formalised.