Catholic Secretariat Chides Presidency Over Villa’s N17bn Solar Project

The Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) has condemned the federal government’s plan to power the Aso Rock Presidential Villa with a N17 billion solar mini-grid, describing the move as a self-inflicted “vote of no confidence” in the nation’s beleaguered electricity sector.

In a statement signed by its national communications director, Rev. Fr. Michael Nsikak Umoh, CSN said the presidency’s decision to physically disconnect from the national grid by March 2026 was a symbolic act of surrender that exposed the failure of government policy and undermined its own reform narrative.

The statement compared the government to a landlord abandoning a crumbling estate for a fortified penthouse while tenants suffer under a leaking roof.

The CSN’s statement followed the announcement by State House permanent secretary, Temitope Fashedemi, that the seat of power would sever its reliance on the national grid.

While officially framed as a green transition and a cost-saving measure, Umoh insisted the optics were damning.

“It is a political statement of rare clarity. Framed officially as a green transition and a fiscal prudence measure, it nonetheless reads as a government-issued vote of no confidence in a sector the same government regulates, supervises, and repeatedly assures Nigerians is on the path to recovery. The Presidency chooses insulation over reform, symbolism hardens into indictment,” he said.

CSN drew a direct line between the decision and a pivotal campaign promise made by President Bola Tinubu on December 22, 2022, when as a presidential candidate he pledged, “If I don’t give you constant electricity in the next four years, don’t vote for me again.”

Umoh noted that this was an explicit covenant with the electorate that set measurable expectations, including an expansion of generation capacity to 15,000MW.

He pointed out that by February 2026, the grid continued to oscillate within the familiar 3,000–5,000MW band, a range that had long symbolised Nigeria’s energy stagnation.

“If the Presidency disengages from the grid three years into a four-year mandate, the optics are unmistakable, confidence in achieving the promised transformation appears diminished,” he stated.

The CSN also highlighted the glaring contradiction in asking citizens to pay more for electricity while the government opts out of the system entirely.

“The N17 billion allocation for the Villa’s solar project comes at a time when Nigerians under the “Band A” tariff regime are grappling with heightened electricity costs approved by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

“Consumers have been urged to accept market-reflective pricing in the name of sectoral reform. Yet reform rings hollow when the reformer elects to exit the system.

“It is difficult to persuade citizens to invest faith and money in a grid from which the highest office in the land is preparing to withdraw,” Umoh stated.

The statement further recalled an embarrassing episode in February 2024 when the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) publicly issued a disconnection notice to the Presidential Villa over unpaid obligations.

“Instead of modelling disciplined compliance to strengthen institutional confidence, the government has chosen “structural secession.

“If energy costs are deemed unsustainable for the Presidency, what does that imply for manufacturers in Agbara, traders in Kano, artisans in Mushin, or industrial clusters in Nnewi and Aba? The message risks being interpreted as this: survival is individual; resilience is private; the grid is incidental,” he stated.

While acknowledging that distributed solar systems are indispensable to Nigeria’s energy future, Umoh cautioned that context is everything.

He warned that when decentralised power is embraced first as an “elite shield” rather than a universal reform template, it resembles not innovation but retreat, mirroring the long-standing generator mentality that accepts public infrastructure failure as a given.

The statement contrasted the Villa project with the embedded generation initiative in Aba, driven by Geometric Power, which it described as a model of targeted reform and localised management.

“Yet such models gain legitimacy when scaled inclusively, not when reserved symbolically or practically for the political apex,” he stated.

Citing a World Bank estimate that Nigeria loses approximately $28 billion annually to unreliable power, the CSN called for systemic courage, not institutional insulation.

“When the commander withdraws from the battlefield to a fortified enclave, the troops infer not strategy but surrender. Governance, at its highest level, carries an ethical obligation to share the burdens it seeks to resolve,” he stated

As the 2027 elections approach, the CSN warned that the electorate will remember the President’s explicit pledge, that disconnecting the Presidency from the grid before that pledge matures, risks transforming a campaign benchmark into a self-administered verdict.

“If the infrastructure managed and promoted by the state is deemed insufficient for the Head of State, the philosophical question becomes unavoidable: for whom, then, is it sufficient?” he stated.

Umoh suggested that the ‘solarisation’ of Aso Rock could be reframed as a pilot for nationwide decentralisation if accompanied by transparent and accelerated reforms that lift the grid for all.

“Absent that, it stands as a potent metaphor: a quiet unplugging that echoes louder than any speech. In politics, symbols endure. And this one, if not carefully redeemed, may be remembered as the moment the state appeared to vote against its own promise,” he stated.