Electricity is not a luxury. For a hospital to run, a factory to function, or a small business to survive, there has to be power. This is what makes the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc one of the most ppl important institutions in the country, even if most Nigerians have never heard of it. NBET sits at the middle of Nigeria’s power supply chain, buying electricity from the companies that generate it and selling it to the companies that distribute it. When that process works, things move. When it breaks down, the whole sector pays for it.
NBET was incorporated on July 29, 2010, as a 100 percent Federal Government-owned institution, set up as part of Nigeria’s power sector reform programme. Its job, in plain terms, is to make sure electricity gets from where it is produced to where it is needed, and that the money follows properly in between.
The man who has done the most to put that process on firmer ground in recent years is Johnson Akinnawo, who served as Acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, a Certified Financial Analyst, and an Energy Contract Management Specialist with over 20 years of experience across finance and energy. He has attended executive programmes at Harvard Law School, the London Business School, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Aarhus University in Denmark, among others. He came into the acting role knowing exactly what needed to be done.
The most pressing problem was debt. By December 2025, the electricity sector owed generation companies more than N6 trillion, accumulated over years of distribution companies not paying what they owed and a system that had been bleeding money quietly for a long time. Akinnawo’s answer was the Presidential Power Sector Debt Reduction Programme, a N4 trillion initiative executed through the capital markets to start clearing those obligations.
In January 2026, NBET closed the first tranche of the programme, raising N501.02 billion through seven-year bonds issued by NBET Finance Company Plc and fully guaranteed by the Federal Government. The market responded. N300 billion came from asset managers, banks, pension funds and retail investors, while N201.02 billion went directly to generation companies that had signed settlement agreements. The bonds were listed on the FMDQ Securities Exchange, and the first coupon payment was made on schedule on July 14, 2026. Series II, valued at N729 billion, is already being prepared.
Outside the bond programme, Akinnawo kept NBET engaged with the international community. The institution hosted the World Bank’s Power Sector Recovery Operation team and represented Nigeria at the Powering Africa Summit in Washington DC in March 2025, where Nigeria’s reform agenda was presented to global energy investors. These were not ceremonial appearances. They were part of a deliberate effort to rebuild confidence in an institution that the sector had long viewed with frustration.
The results speak clearly. The bond drew full market subscription and the first coupon was paid on schedule. An institution that was once synonymous with sector dysfunction is now executing one of the most significant financial programmes in Nigeria’s energy history.
In July 2026, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Dr. Akinola Odeyemi as the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NBET. Odeyemi formally took over from Akinnawo, stepping into a role that has real momentum behind it and real work still ahead. The debt reduction programme is mid-execution, the sector’s recovery is incomplete, and the institution needs leadership that will see it through. That is now his responsibility, and by the look of what has been built before him, he has a solid foundation to work from.
Samuel Agboola is a member of the editorial team of TheScript Newspaper
