In January 2010, I travelled to Emago-Kugbo, a riverine community in Abua-Odual Local Government Area of Rivers State. I went for business. What I found stayed with me far longer than the business did.
There was no electricity. The power poles stood there for decoration, never connected to anything. There was no phone service, no potable water in a community surrounded by water, and no fish in rivers that had fed generations, killed off by oil spills. Getting there meant either a punishing speedboat ride through waterways choked with water hyacinth, or a four-hour journey through a neighbouring state by vehicle, motorcycle, and foot.
The part that unsettled me most came later, when I learned that this same community was Nigeria’s first crude oil loading bay. The first barrels of crude from Oloibiri were shipped out from Emago-Kugbo. The place that helped launch Nigeria’s oil wealth had been left with none of its light.
I wrote about that visit on my personal blog at the time. You can still read it: The Plight of Emago-Kugbo. When I revisited the post in 2023, more than a decade later, little had changed.
Seeing what power makes possible
That trip taught me two things at once. The first was how much difference reliable power makes. Everything in Emago-Kugbo was harder without it: preserving food, studying after dark, running a business, reaching a doctor, staying connected to the world. Energy poverty is not one problem. It is a multiplier sitting underneath every other problem a community faces.
The second was how powerless I felt. I could write about it, and I did. But writing does not turn on a light.
Trying to act
That same year, for my final-year engineering project, I designed and fabricated a low-cost anaerobic biogas digester, built so rural households could cook without firewood or kerosene. It was a student’s answer to a national problem, but it planted something: the conviction that practical, affordable clean energy was possible, and that communities like Emago-Kugbo did not have to wait for the grid to arrive.
Living the difference
In 2021, I moved my own home and work largely off-grid onto solar power and my parents followed shortly after. I can say plainly that the improvement in quality of life was unmatched. Quiet nights without a generator. Lights that simply come on. The freedom to plan your day without planning around darkness.
Once you have lived that difference, you cannot unknow it. And you cannot stop thinking about the millions of Nigerian households, schools, and clinics still waiting for it.
From one household to many
The Climate Energy and Livelihoods Initiative was born from a simple need: to take what I experienced personally and multiply it, to touch as many lives as possible. CELI exists to bring clean, affordable energy, practical skills, and stronger livelihoods to underserved communities, the Emago-Kugbos of Nigeria, the places the grid forgot.
I serve CELI as co-founder and chairman of its Board of Trustees, providing governance and strategic direction. The organisation is led day to day by my co-founder, Jennifer Ugwueze, our Executive Director, and it is her team that turns this conviction into programmes on the ground.
Sixteen years after Emago-Kugbo, I no longer feel powerless. I feel responsible.