Suleiman Babamanu’s path to the heart of Nigeria’s biggest solar power program started in disappointment. After university he worked as a trainee geoscientist for a unit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. A job in the industry—Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer—would have been a traditional route, and a lucrative one. But he couldn’t find employment.
This was about 2010, when the growth of clean energy around the world made it start to seem like a potential career path. The industry hadn’t gained much traction in Nigeria, and he set aside the idea, until a conversation with a relative persuaded him to reconsider.
“A cousin told me not to go where the money is but where the money is going,” he says. “I immediately changed my mind and applied for a master’s degree in renewable energy, and I got a scholarship.” That sent him to Newcastle University in the U.K. and then on to a range of public and private jobs in his home country’s renewables industry, including projects that had received World Bank funding.
Now he’s implementing Nigeria’s largest investment in solar power, part of the country’s Covid economic recovery plan. The project, Solar Power Naija, is also a step toward solving one of Nigeria’s biggest problems: a lack of reliable electricity.