By Chidi Ugwu
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria, Engr Jennifer Adighije, has emerged as the Young Achiever of the Year at the 2025 Energy Times Awards.
The award was presented to her over the weekend at a dinner held in Lagos.
The organisers said Adighije was selected for the award for having shown an “unwavering commitment to the sector-wide goal of 6,000 megawatts power generation to ensure widespread access to quality electricity.”
It was stated that briefly after her appointment in August 2024, Adighije ensured the restoration of two turbine units that had been offline due to bearing defects, adding 230MW to the national power generation output.
Speaking with newsmen at the award presentation dinner, the managing director described the award as a humbling experience, especially as a new management team in the office in less than a year.
“It’s a very humbling experience for us at NDPHC. As you are aware, we’re a new management. We’ve been in office less than a year. This is a call to work harder,” she said.
Adighije stressed that the new management under her leadership has a clear mandate to scale power generation.
According to her, the NDPHC is the only agency with the express mandate to carry out interventions across the value chain, stressing that her team is not losing focus on the mandate.
“The mandate is very clear to us, which is to scale generation, transmission, and distribution capacity across the power sector. We are the only agency or institution or entity in the power sector with the express mandate to carry out interventions across the entire gas-to-electricity ecosystem. And we’re not losing sight of this,” she stated.
Other awardees at the event are the Governor of Ekiti, Abayomi Oyebanji, as the Energy Governor of the Year; the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, as the Power Sector Personality of the Year; former Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, as the Man of the Year; the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, as the Transformational Leader of the Year; and the CEO of Ikeja Electric, Folake Soetan, who emerged as the Amazon of Nigeria Power Sector.
Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited bagged the Major Oil Company of the Year; Seplat Energy is the Fastest Growing Indigenous Oil Company of the Year; Egbin Power got the Sustainable Development Company of the Year; Heirs Energies is the Outstanding Oil Company of the Year; NNPC spokesman, Olufemi Soneye as honoured with an Award of Excellence, among other recipients.
