Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja
Minister calls for stronger synergy between RAMCO and Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative
The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to achieving sustainable electricity supply across Nigeria’s health facilities, with the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, describing reliable power as a critical determinant of health outcomes. This was contained in a statement signed by Ado Bako, Assistant Director, Information and Public Relations.
Dr. Salako stated this on Wednesday at the official launch of the Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO) of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), held at the Congress Hall, Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, with the theme, “Powering Sustainable Growth: Launching Nigeria’s Renewable Asset Management Company.”
The Minister said the sustainability of renewable-energy infrastructure was particularly important to the health sector because electricity in healthcare facilities was not merely an infrastructure requirement but a critical clinical input.
Speaking as both a physician and a Minister, he explained that electricity powers essential services such as vaccine cold chains, oxygen concentrators, operating theatres and neonatal incubators, stressing that power failure in health facilities could translate into loss of time, reduced quality of care and, in some cases, loss of life.
The Minister also acknowledged the interventions of the Federal Ministry of Power and the REA in supporting the electrification of health facilities.
He noted that under the Energizing Education Programme, federal tertiary health institutions, including teaching hospitals in Maiduguri and Calabar, had benefited from renewable-energy interventions, while under the Nigeria Electrification Project, 100 health facilities had received 50-kilowatt containerised solar hybrid systems, with a second phase targeting 400 Primary Health Care Centres.
Despite these interventions and the support of development partners, Dr. Salako said energy poverty remained a major challenge within Nigeria’s health system.
According to him, between 60 and 70 per cent of Nigeria’s primary and tertiary health facilities experience frequent power outages or have no electricity at all, while about 40 per cent of functional Primary Health Care Centres have no electricity access.
He further noted that most of the remaining facilities receive only about six to ten hours of electricity daily, while teaching hospitals requiring between three and eight megawatts for optimal operation receive roughly five hours of grid supply daily and may commit as much as 40 to 50 per cent of their operating expenditure to energy, much of it on diesel.
Dr. Salako recalled that against this background, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, approved the establishment of the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative following the first National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector held in September 2025.
He said the dialogue resulted in a Compact for the Sustainable Electrification of Public and Private Health Facilities, signed by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Power, sub-national governments, the Committee of CMDs/MDs, the private sector, development partners and civil society.
The Compact, he further said, established a clear target of ensuring that at least 30 per cent of health facilities in Nigeria have steady power supply by the end of 2027, alongside an implementation plan and governance structure involving relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies, including the REA.
The Minister emphasised that government alone could not finance the scale of energy infrastructure required across Nigeria’s health system, stressing the need to mobilise private capital, development finance, climate finance and innovative financing mechanisms.
He said the objective was not simply to install solar panels or batteries, but to build resilient health infrastructure capable of delivering reliable power over the long term, reiterating that this is where RAMCO becomes particularly relevant to the health sector.
Dr. Salako explained that evidence from solar systems installed in Nigerian Primary Health Care Centres indicates that more than 30 per cent become non-functional within three years of commissioning, with the problem often linked not to the technology itself but to inadequate preventive maintenance, unavailable spare parts, lack of dedicated budgetary provisions and unclear responsibility for the assets after project completion.
He said RAMCO’s asset-management model—build, operate, optimise, aggregate, refinance and reinvest—could help transform renewable-energy installations from short-term projects into professionally managed national infrastructure assets.
The Minister proposed four areas of practical synergy between RAMCO and the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative.
First, he called for health facilities to be recognised as a distinct asset class within RAMCO’s portfolio, beginning with teaching hospitals and health facilities already solarised under existing Federal Government programmes.
Second, he advocated the integration of RAMCO’s professional asset-management model with Facility Energy Management Teams being institutionalised in hospitals, noting that effective sustainability requires both on-site technical ownership and professional management.
Third, he called for RAMCO’s asset register to be integrated with health-facility energy audits, stressing that improved data would enable both sectors to plan and invest from a common evidence base.
Fourth, he proposed that a defined share of the capital recycled by RAMCO should be directed towards Primary Health Care Centres, particularly facilities that may be less commercially attractive but are critical to improving maternal and newborn health outcomes.
“For our part, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare commits to offering RAMCO a seat within the Inter-Agency Technical Committee of the Power-for-Health Initiative,” he said.
He further pledged that the Ministry would advance electricity as a dedicated budget line across all tiers of healthcare, complete and regularly update facility energy audits, enforce certification and installation standards, including NEMSA certification, and harmonise partner and private-sector interventions under government leadership.
Dr. Salako stressed that a credible asset-management framework would make healthcare electrification more attractive to long-term investors by ensuring that renewable assets are professionally managed, performance data are transparent, maintenance is predictable and payment structures are credible.
The Minister reiterated that Nigeria’s target of achieving steady power supply in at least one-third of its health facilities by the end of 2027 would not be achieved through procurement alone.
“We will reach it by building assets that last, and by managing them as the national infrastructure they are,” he stated.
He concluded with a call for RAMCO to help ensure that sustainable renewable-energy infrastructure keeps the lights on where they matter most—in facilities delivering essential healthcare to Nigerians, and congratulated the REA, the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) and InfraCorp on the launch of RAMCO, assuring the Ministry of Health continued support.
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