By Udeme Akpan, Energy Editor

Professor Bart Nnaji is the founder and Chairman of Geometric Power Limited (the pioneer private power company in Nigeria). The company prides itself on being the country’s first and only indigenous, independent and integrated power company.

Other power firms are either licensed for the distribution or generation of electricity. However, Geometric Power is in both through its project companies. Its the only power firm so far, whose project companies generate power and supply the same to the power off takers within a ringfenced area.

That of Aba which includes nine (9), out of the seventeen (17) Local Government Areas in Abia State, to the generation company may also export the excess power generated within the ringfence to the national grid so that there will be more power available in other parts of the country.

The Geometric Power firm he founded made history in 2001 when it led a team of Nigerian engineers to become the first indigenous group to build a private power plant project in the country. This was the 22MW Abuja Emergency Power Plant which provided electricity to critical parts of the Federal Capital Territory when the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) was constructing the Katampe-Shiroro Transmission Line.

The critical areas it provided uninterrupted and quality power to were the State House, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Federal Secretariat, the International Conference Centre, and the entire Abuja Business District. Impressed by this development, the visiting World Bank President, James Wolfensohn, now late, in the company of the new Nigerian Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, requested Prof Nnaji, to come up with a sustainable solution for the dire state of power supply in Aba, especially power supply that would be dedicated to industries in this bustling city of Aba, often referred to as Nigeria’s “Taiwan” because of the ingenuity of the people to manufacture a wide variety of products in Aba, including beverages, processed foods, glasses, metals, soaps, detergents, and vegetable oils. Both Wolfensohn and Okonjo-Iweala had visited Aba on March 16, 2024, and were appalled that the people’s ingenuity was stifled by the absence of, particularly electric power.

Nnaji took up the challenge, even though the electric power sector then was a Federal Government monopoly. It was a year later that the Electric Power Sector Reform Act, permitting state and local governments as well as individuals and private sector organizations in the sector, was enacted. A contract was consequently signed between Geometric Power and relevant Federal Government agencies like NEPA and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in 2024 and amended in 2025.

This agreement carved out the two NEPA Business Units in Aba into an electricity ringfence to serve as a model for the development of the Nigerian electric power sector. As the 50MW Geometric Power Plant was being developed, Prof Nnaji felt that hospitals, laboratories, and schools that play significant roles in societal development should not be excluded from the impending electricity revolution in Aba and the environs. An application was subsequently written to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to permit the plant to be upgraded to 188MW to accommodate even individual residences in the Aba Ringfence, even though it was not costeffective to provide them with electricity at the tariff approved by the government. Agreements were entered into with world-class firms to build the Aba Independent Power Project consisting of the Geometric Power Plant, a dedicated 27- kilometre gas pipeline from Owaza in Ukwa West LGA to the plant in Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba, and Aba Power Ltd, the electricity distribution company.

Contracts were signed with General Electric of the United States, the world’s oldest and biggest electric equipment manufacturing firm; the National Rural Electric Company (NRECA), also of the United States; Group Five of South Africa; Pauwels Contracting of Belgium; and ABB Powerlines. All this was to give communities, businesses, and individuals in the Aba Ringfence world-class service. Geometric Power’s project companies has significantly enhanced the local power supply grid in Aba by building five (5) new sub stations, and refurbished the three sub-stations inherited from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) making them work as almost as brand new ones. Over 150 kilometres of overhead lines have also been installed.

The steel tubular poles in Aba and its environs are comparable to the ones in world-class cities such as Los Angeles and Tokyo which are earthquake-prone, though Aba has no history of natural disasters of such proportions. The Aba Independent Power Project was commissioned on February 26, 2024, by Vice President Kashim Shettima on behalf of President Bola Tinubu. The Aba Independent Power Project has cost $800m, making it by far, the single largest private-sector investment in Southeast Nigeria.