NISO: Rewiring Nigeria’s Power Value Chain Through Independent Grid Management’ By Adagher Tersoo
Nigeria’s electricity sector has entered a new phase in its long-running reform journey with the emergence of the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) as a standalone institution responsible for the independent operation and management of the national electricity system. Created from the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) under the Electricity Act 2023, NISO is designed to provide a neutral platform for system operations, market administration and long-term system planning. Its mandate cuts across generation scheduling and dispatch, transmission coordination, congestion management, ancillary services, wholesale electricity-market administration and system planning—functions that place it at the centre of the electricity value chain.
Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Engr. Abdu Mohammed Bello, FNSE, as Managing Director/CEO on March 19, 2025, NISO has been working to translate the independence of the institution into measurable improvements in grid management and market discipline. Bello came to the position with extensive experience across the electricity industry. Before NISO, he served as Managing Director/CEO of Jos Electricity Distribution Company from October 2022 and previously held senior responsibilities at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), including General Manager, Engineering, Performance and Monitoring, and Chief of Staff. His professional background therefore spans regulation, distribution and system management—experience that has informed his emphasis on coordination across the entire power value chain.
NISO Under Bello’s leadership, one of NISO’s most significant early achievements has been the improvement of system-loss management and operational visibility. At NISO’s first anniversary in April 2026, Bello disclosed that transmission losses had fallen from almost 10 per cent to 7.05 per cent, after the organisation inherited losses that he said were costing the sector between ₦5 billion and ₦8 billion monthly. He attributed the improvement partly to stronger enforcement and improved compliance by generating companies, noting that better adherence to operational requirements had also contributed to improved system-frequency stability. “We have seen a lot of improvement on the stability of the system frequency, thereby improving the grid reliability in general,” he said, while warning that generators that continued to disregard the rules would face enforcement.
Technology has also become central to the NISO strategy. Bello has pushed for a transition from a largely manual operating environment to a system characterised by real-time data, automation and greater visibility across generation, transmission, distribution and eligible customers. NISO has been deploying telemetry and Internet-of-Things metering while upgrading its SCADA/EMS infrastructure. According to Bello, “the visibility of the system would be enhanced and the management capability and control of the national grid will also be enhanced,” a transformation intended to enable operators to detect disturbances faster, improve dispatch decisions and ultimately reduce avoidable outages and instability.
NISO’s intervention has extended beyond the technical management of electricity flows to the commercial integrity of the sector. In 2026, the organisation intensified its engagement with GenCos, DisCos, eligible customers and large electricity consumers over energy theft and market compliance.
A particularly striking investigation along the Ikorodu–Sagamu 132kV corridor uncovered alleged electricity theft amounting to almost 180MW. Bello described the scale as “unimaginable,” noting that the volume was roughly comparable to the daily allocation of the Jos Electricity Distribution Company. NISO subsequently engaged NERC on the findings and began pursuing stronger measures—including reconstruction and back-billing, financial penalties and, for persistent offenders, disconnection or suspension from the market.
The organisation has simultaneously been strengthening collaboration across the power ecosystem and beyond Nigeria’s borders. NISO has engaged the African Development Bank on grid stability, capacity building, infrastructure investment and digital modernisation; it has also been admitted into the West African Power Pool (WAPP), opening another avenue for regional electricity integration. Its participation in ministerial power-sector coordination has further reinforced its role as a bridge among government institutions, GenCos, DisCos, transmission stakeholders and market participants. Bello has repeatedly stressed that NISO cannot stabilise the grid in isolation. At an August 2026 workshop, he observed that the system still operates amid “generation and transmission constraints, changing demand patterns, frequency excursions and voltage-security challenges,” underscoring the need for coordinated action across the industry.
Perhaps the clearest measure of NISO’s emerging impact is the institution’s contribution to managing the grid during periods of disturbance. Nigeria’s history of system collapses has made grid restoration, frequency management and coordination between generation and transmission critical national issues. NISO reported that disturbances in 2025 were fewer and more effectively managed than in previous years, attributing the improvement to the professionalism of system operators and stronger coordination with market participants and other stakeholders. Bello described NISO’s first year as a period in which the institution took “the first meaningful steps in operationalising our mandate,” while recording progress in grid operations, regional cooperation and modern tools for system visibility and coordination.
The significance of NISO, therefore, goes beyond the daily technical business of moving electricity around the national grid. Its real importance lies in creating an independent coordinating mechanism capable of connecting generation, transmission, distribution, market settlement, system planning, regulation and consumers within a more transparent operating framework. Bello has captured that ambition in his declaration that NISO’s mandate is “to provide a neutral, transparent platform that ensures fairness for all participants in the electricity market.” For an electricity sector struggling simultaneously with inadequate generation, weak infrastructure, commercial losses, energy theft, liquidity pressures and recurrent grid disturbances, the effectiveness of such an institution could ultimately determine how successfully Nigeria converts investments in generation and transmission into electricity that actually reaches homes, businesses and industries. NISO’s first phase under Bello has consequently been less about claiming that Nigeria’s power problems have been solved and more about building the operational architecture, discipline, technology and market confidence required to solve them sustainably.
Adagher Tersoo, is a public affairs analyst and corporate communication expert
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