- At the 118th Power Dialogue, stakeholders called for stronger local content to ensure Nigeria’s energy transition drives jobs, innovation, and industrial growth.
- The dialogue highlighted the need for greater support for local manufacturers, youth-led innovation, and domestic energy value chains.
Energy sector leaders, policymakers, development partners, industry experts, and youth advocates have called for a deliberate, coordinated effort to strengthen local content across Nigeria’s energy value chain as a critical pathway to an inclusive, sustainable energy transition.
The call was made during the 118th edition of the Power Dialogue, themed “Scaling Local Content for Accelerated Energy Transition,” organised by The Electricity Hub and Nextier, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nigeria, at the UN House in Abuja on Wednesday, June 3, 2026.
The dialogue brought together key stakeholders to examine how Nigeria can leverage local manufacturing, technology transfer, workforce development, innovation, and policy reforms to position Nigerians at the centre of the country’s clean energy future.
Opening the discussion, Communications Consultant at The Electricity Hub, Blessing Afolabi, challenged participants to consider how Nigeria can accelerate energy access while simultaneously building the local capabilities required to sustain the transition. As conversations around local manufacturing, technology transfer, workforce development, and recent policy proposals on solar imports continue to gain momentum, stakeholders agreed that the time has come to move beyond ambition and focus on implementation.
Beyond Energy Access: Capturing Economic Value
n his welcome remarks, Dr Geoffrey Omedo, Technical Specialist, Climate and Energy Finance at UNDP Nigeria, highlighted the urgency of building local capabilities alongside the country’s energy transition ambitions. He noted that Africa risks remaining a supplier of raw materials while other regions capture the value associated with manufacturing and innovation.
According to him, Africa continues to export raw materials while other regions capture the value associated with manufacturing, processing, and technology development. “If we do not try to stem the ongoing importation craze, we are basically importing away jobs,” he noted, emphasising the need for stronger local participation across renewable energy supply chains.
Dr Omedo further highlighted the rapid growth of the global renewable energy industry and questioned why Africa, despite possessing significant mineral resources and one of the world’s largest energy access deficits, continues to occupy the margins of emerging clean energy value chains.
He stressed that scaling local content must involve not only manufacturing but also investments in research, innovation, and workforce development, citing UNDP’s University Innovation Ports initiative as one example of efforts to strengthen local capacity and bridge the gap between academia and industry.
Local Content Must Mean More Than Local Ownership
Delivering a thematic presentation titled The Dangers of Foretold Stories: Why We Must Own the Value, Not Just the Narrative, Busayo Omofe, Sustainable Energy Programme Officer at UNDP Nigeria, challenged stakeholders to rethink the concept of local content. She argued that local content should not be measured solely by the presence of local resources or local ownership but by the country’s ability to create productive capacity, generate innovation, and retain value within the domestic economy.
Omofe emphasised that energy transition is not merely an energy-sector conversation but a broader national development agenda with implications for agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing, and economic productivity. “The real prize is not the megawatts,” she argued. “The real prize is the economic value those megawatts create.”
She further called for greater attention to neglected opportunities such as clean cooking, local innovation ecosystems, and indigenous data generation, warning that countries that fail to define their own development pathways risk having those pathways defined by others.
Industry Calls for Practical Support for Local Manufacturers
During the panel discussion moderated by Irene David-Arinze, Founder of LIDA Network, participants examined the barriers preventing local businesses from competing effectively within Nigeria’s renewable energy market.
Habiba Ali, CEO of Sosai Renewable Energies, argued that Nigeria’s challenge is not a lack of talent or entrepreneurial capacity but an inability to scale existing efforts. She identified financing constraints, taxation, weak market awareness, limited institutional support, and high certification costs as major obstacles facing local manufacturers and innovators.
Ali also highlighted a persistent trust deficit around locally produced technologies, noting that many consumers and developers continue to favour imported products despite the emergence of indigenous alternatives. Stakeholders agreed that public procurement could serve as a powerful tool for stimulating domestic industries, with calls for a greater share of government-funded energy projects to source products and services from local manufacturers.
Regional Markets and Industrial Strategy
Participants also stressed that Nigeria’s local content ambitions cannot be pursued in isolation. While acknowledging recent progress, including the export of Nigerian-assembled solar panels to regional markets, speakers argued that achieving scale will require stronger regional cooperation, harmonised policies, and effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The discussion highlighted the importance of building integrated African value chains capable of competing globally, particularly in emerging sectors such as solar manufacturing, battery production, electric mobility, and critical mineral processing.
Chibueze Ekeh, CEO of CEESOLAR, argued that financing for energy access must move beyond infrastructure deployment to focus on economic transformation. He noted that while significant funding is being mobilised for renewable energy projects, the long-term success of such investments will depend on their ability to stimulate local industries, create jobs, and support productive uses of energy. “The government has taken up loans and provided subsidies to support renewable energy growth, but the question is how that money circulates back into the economy,” he said. Ekeh stressed that energy investments should be intentionally linked to local manufacturing, agro-processing, and small businesses to ensure that communities not only receive electricity but also gain the economic opportunities needed to sustain development.
Youth Must Be Builders, Not Beneficiaries
The dialogue also examined the role of young people in shaping Nigeria’s energy future.
Damilola Hamid Balogun, Co-Founder and CEO of the Youth Sustainable Development Network (YSDN), noted that young people constitute the majority of Nigeria’s population and are already contributing to the sector through innovation, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and project implementation. However, he argued that many energy programmes continue to treat youth primarily as beneficiaries rather than as active participants in designing and implementing solutions.
“An energy transition that does not create jobs, include young people, and shape both thinkers and doers is merely a technology transfer, not an energy transition,” he said. He called for dedicated financing windows, stronger policy support, and greater inclusion of youth-led enterprises in major energy initiatives.
The Way Forward
A clear consensus emerged from the dialogue: Nigeria’s energy transition must be designed not only to deliver electricity, but also to create jobs, strengthen industries, stimulate innovation, and expand economic opportunities. Achieving this will require coordinated action across government, industry, academia, development partners, and civil society to support local manufacturing, strengthen workforce development, improve access to finance, encourage technology transfer, and create markets for indigenous solutions.
As Nigeria pursues universal energy access and a cleaner energy future, participants agreed that the country’s success will depend not only on how much energy it generates, but on how much value it creates.