Tegbe Inaugurates REA Board, Urges People-Centred Leadership

The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe has inaugurated the newly constituted governing board of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) in Abuja, urging members to ensure every decision is guided by how it improves the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Nigerians.

The ceremony was attended by the permanent secretary, Board Chairman His Excellency Mr. Ayodele Fayose, REA’s managing director/chief executive officer, board members and ministry management.

Tegbe described the Board’s constitution as consistent with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s drive to strengthen governance and accountability across public institutions, and called REA an institution for expanding opportunity: every mini-grid, solar home system and electrified market, school, health centre or farm, he said, represents an investment in human capital and economic inclusion.

He pointed to REA’s existing programmes, the Energizing Education, Economies and Agriculture Programmes and the Africa Mini-Grids Programme, as evidence of that strategy at work, and noted that the Board, constituted under Section 130 of the Electricity Act, takes office at a defining moment for the Agency.

On governance, the minister drew a clear line between the Board’s non-executive role of strategic direction and oversight and Management’s responsibility for day-to-day execution, noting that the Board meets quarterly to review performance while Management retains operational latitude between meetings, subject to full accountability.

He commended Chairman Fayose’s record as a former governor of Ekiti State and welcomed the other Board members, closing with an assurance of the ministry’s continued partnership and a description of electricity as an instrument of inclusion, opportunity and prosperity.

Responding for the Board, Chairman Fayose described President Tinubu’s decision to appoint Tegbe as a statement of seriousness rather than a routine appointment, a signal that the administration would settle for nothing less than a lasting solution to Nigeria’s power problem.

He called the minister a technocrat whose technical depth and managerial competence have already produced a positive turning point for the sector, and affirmed that REA’s leadership was proud to work with him on that effort.