By Bassey Udo
Nigerians must be prepared to pay more if they desire to enjoy stability in electricity supply in the country, President Bola Tinubu has said.
Consequently, the President has directed the Budget Office of the Federation to come up with a clearer framework for the sharing of the cost of electricity subsidies among the various tiers of government in the federation.
He said the operational framework must be such that the burden of paying for escalating tariffs on electricity was not borne as a residual open-ended cost by the federal government.
The Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, quoted the President in a speech delivered at the opening of the training of the staff of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on the 2026 post-budget preparation using Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) in Abuja.
“If we want a stable power sector, we must be ready to pay for the choices we make. When tariffs are held below cost, a gap is created. That gap is a subsidy. And a subsidy is a bill. In 2026, we will stop pretending that this bill can be left to the Federal Government alone —especially where the policy choice or the political benefit is shared across tiers of government.
“The president’s directive is for us to invoke the electricity sector legal framework to make burden-sharing practical and transparent. This means, subsidy costs must be explicit, tracked, and funded —so they do not return as arrears, liquidity crises, or hidden liabilities in the market,” he said.
He said the situation was that if any tier of government chooses affordability interventions, the funding responsibilities must be clear, agreed, and enforceable.
This, he pointed out, was not punishment, but alignment, adding that when everyone carries a fair share of the cost, everyone would also have an incentive to support cost-reflective efficiency, targeted protection for the vulnerable, and a power market that can actually deliver stable electricity supply to consumers.
Tanimu who was represented by the Director, Expenditure, Budget Office, Mr Yusuf Muhammed, told 2026 Budget planners to make subsidy-related costs visible in their planning and submissions, urging them not to push such liabilities into the market as arrears or unfunded commitments.
Lamenting the negative impact of rollover budgeting and fragmented project lists, he said these have weakened execution of budget proposals in recent times.
“Support transparent, rules-based attribution and financing of affordability decisions,” he charged, adding that the policy of rollover budgeting reduces clarity, dilute accountability
and create hidden obligations.
The 2026 Budget, he noted, has corrected this, as it is built as one coherent implementation framework.
He said in line with President Tinubu’s directive, the approach is to consolidate commitments into a single, visible pipeline and manage them as a disciplined programme of delivery called the “single-train” approach”..
