Short answer: Nigerian federal agencies published 245 street lighting contract awards from 2021 to 2025 on the national open contracting portal, worth about ₦27 billion. 86 % are for solar street lights. Most come from constituency-type projects run by the Border Communities Development Agency, plus the Federal Capital Territory Administration and the river basin development authorities. The median contract is about ₦75 million, and 221 different contractors won awards.
We extracted every award whose title refers to street lights, floodlights, high masts or solar lighting from the Bureau of Public Procurement’s open contracting data (published through the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal) and analysed them by year, buyer and value.
Key numbers
- 245 street lighting awards, 2021–2025, about ₦27 billion in total.
- 86 % are solar street light contracts; about one in nine is for maintenance, repair or backup generators.
- Awards rose from 28 in 2021 to 78 in 2024; 2025 recorded 59.
- Median award about ₦75 million; the middle half range from about ₦38 million to ₦132 million.
1. Awards by year
| Year | Awards | Value (₦ billion) |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 28 | 2.0 |
| 2022 | 32 | 6.7 |
| 2023 | 47 | 3.6 |
| 2024 | 78 | 8.7 |
| 2025 | 59 | 6.0 |
2. Who buys
| Federal buyer | Awards |
|---|---|
| Border Communities Development Agency | 149 |
| Federal Capital Territory Administration | 41 |
| River basin development authorities (Upper Benue, Ogun-Osun, Benin-Owena, Sokoto-Rima) | 26 |
| National Lottery Trust Fund | 10 |
| Other agencies (research institutes, AUDA-NEPAD Nigeria, boundary commission) | 19 |
Many of these awards are federal constituency projects: lights for named communities, markets and roads in a legislator’s constituency, executed through a federal agency. That is why the same agency awards many small contracts across many states.
3. Why almost all of it is solar
Most projects light rural roads, markets and community centres where grid supply is weak or absent, so stand-alone solar street lights are the practical choice. Titles regularly specify “all-in-one” or “stand-alone” solar lights. Where grid lighting exists, as in parts of Abuja, contracts include maintenance and backup generators instead.
4. What it means for contractors and suppliers
- Many small, dispersed projects. A typical award covers a few dozen lights in one community; contractors need fast quotes, small batches and sample units.
- All-in-one lights dominate community projects; main roads need split systems. See our comparison.
- Specify for the rainy season and for theft. See our Nigeria guide and anti-theft design.
- SONCAP documents are needed for every import, so suppliers must provide test reports for the exact model.
Method and limits
We used the Bureau of Public Procurement’s open contracting dataset as published on the Open Contracting Partnership’s data registry, selected awards whose titles refer to street lighting, floodlights, high masts or solar lights, and grouped them by year, buyer and value as published in naira. Only federal entities that publish to the portal are included; state and local government contracts, which are large in number, are mostly not. Treat the figures as a lower bound on federal demand.
FAQ
Who buys solar street lights at federal level in Nigeria?
Mainly the Border Communities Development Agency (largely constituency projects), the Federal Capital Territory Administration and the river basin development authorities.
How big are Nigerian federal street light contracts?
The median award is about ₦75 million; half fall between about ₦38 million and ₦132 million.
What share is solar?
About 86 % of the 2021–2025 street lighting awards in the dataset are for solar street lights.
Where is this data from?
Bureau of Public Procurement open contracting data (OCDS), retrieved from data.open-contracting.org and analysed by Solmast in October 2026.
How we help
We supply all-in-one and split solar street lights to Nigerian contractors, with real battery and lumen figures on every datasheet, samples for bids and SONCAP documents.
Sources: Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Nigeria, open contracting data 2021–2025, via the OCP Data Registry, retrieved October 2026; analysis by Solmast. Related: Kenya and Tanzania and Zambia lighting contracts analysed.