It is perhaps the most cursed portfolio in the Nigerian cabinet: Minister of Power.
From Chief Bola Ige who famously promised to fix power in six months and could not, through the $16 billion power probe under President Olusegun Obasanjo that fixed nothing, to Adebayo Adelabu who in 2024 blamed Nigerians for leaving their freezers on when not at home – every occupant of that office learns quickly that in Nigeria, power is not just about megawatts; it is about emotions.
The current occupant, Minister Joseph Tegbe, is learning that lesson, not from a system collapse, but from a headline.
In a report by Vanguard newspaper last week, Tegbe was quoted in a bold, screaming headline to have said “freezers are now freezing.” Inside the body of the same story, the quotation was correctly rendered. The minister was relaying feedback from Nigerians about improvement in supply.
One Nigerian, according to him, told him: “slow down, everything in my freezer is now freezing.”
That attribution is everything. The headline stripped it of attribution and context and turned an anecdotal feedback into a ministerial declaration. It is the classic headline trick: technically not false, substantively misleading.
Tegbe is pissed off. Understandably so. He smells mischief, and he may not be wrong.
The headline is a hatchet job – politically convenient, deliberately crafted to put him on the spot and create a pain point in the build-up to President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid. It hands the opposition and the permanently angry commentariat a ready-made meme: “Look, another power minister claiming Eldorado while we are in darkness.”
And it worked. The deluge of criticisms that inundated Tegbe from Nigerians whose freezer experience is otherwise proves the point. Power supply has improved in some corridors, but it has yet to ramify every nook and cranny. Tegbe himself never claimed it had.
At the event in Abuja where he spoke, he was clear: some, not all Nigerians, said their freezers are now freezing. That distinction between “some” and “all” is the difference between honest reporting and mischief. The headline caster, even if not a journalist of malice, should have known that elementary rule: when you quote a feedback, attribute it to the source.
This is why Tegbe’s irritation is justified.
For a minister who has spent only 100 days in office, pedigree matters, and record matters. Tegbe is not a chance appointee who stumbled into power sector economics.
He is a renowned fiscal, economic and institutional reform strategist with over 35 years of professional experience across public and private sectors. Former Senior Partner and Head of Advisory Services at KPMG Africa, he has led transformational initiatives in tax administration reform, fiscal policy restructuring and institutional transformation.
He has advised FIRS, CBN, BPE and several State Boards of Internal Revenue. His private sector client list – Shell, Huawei, Sinopec, GE, CCECC, MTN, Odu’a Group – speaks to range and depth.
He led the ERP-based modernization of FIRS; fiscal modernization that boosted IGR in Bayelsa, Delta, Ondo, Oyo and Benue; served as lead technical facilitator at Presidential Policy Dialogues; advised the Vice President-led National Industrial Policy & Competitiveness Council; spearheaded fiscal alignment for the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP); led regulatory oversight reviews for NCC, NBET, NERC; contributed to FSS 2020 and harmonization of salaries and allowances across MDAs; and drove institutional reforms for Odu’a Group.
In September 2024, he was appointed Director General and Global Liaison for the Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership, NCSP. In April 2026, he was appointed Honourable Minister of Power to drive reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
He holds BSc Civil Engineering (First Class), MBA (Switzerland), Masters in Public Administration (Birmingham), Doctorate in Business Administration (in view), and is alumnus of LBS, INSEAD, Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. He is FCA, FCIT, and CGEIT certified.
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That is the record Tegbe is defending as he settles into the most difficult ministry in Nigeria.
He knows, as every reformer knows, that 100 days is too early to claim victory in power. What he can claim is trajectory and feedback – that some Nigerians are beginning to feel a difference. That honest feedback should not be weaponised into a false declaration of Uhuru.
The media owes the power sector more than sensational headlines. Nigeria does not need another minister roasted on the altar of a catchy but misleading headline.
The freezers of some Nigerians may indeed be freezing. The job of the minister is to ensure that many more freezers freeze. The job of the press is to report that distinction faithfully – without freezing the facts.
