Ikeja Electric names new acting CEO as longtime chief exits for broader role

Ikeja Electric, Nigeria’s largest electricity distribution company by customer base, said Friday it has appointed Ogochukwu Onyelucheya as acting chief executive officer, effective July 1, replacing Folake Soetan, who led the utility through six years of sweeping operational change and is stepping into a wider strategic role within parent company Sahara Group.

The transition comes at a sensitive moment for Nigeria’s power sector, where distribution companies, known locally as DisCos, have long struggled with aging infrastructure, high collection losses, and a regulatory environment that critics say has kept tariffs too low to attract meaningful private investment.

Against that backdrop, the outgoing CEO’s tenure was seen by analysts and company insiders alike as a stabilising force.

Soetan took over in 2020, a period when confidence in the privatised electricity distribution industry was fragile at best.

During her time at Ikeja Electric, she oversaw improvements in operational performance, strengthened the company’s relationships with regulators and investors, and pushed the utility toward a more customer-focused culture, no small feat in a market where unplanned outages and estimated billing remain persistent sources of consumer frustration.

She departs for what the company described as broader responsibilities across Sahara’s power and upstream energy businesses on the continent.

“Folake has been instrumental in transforming Ikeja Electric into a more resilient, customer-focused, and performance-driven organisation,” said Kola Adesina, the company’s chairman, in a statement released Friday.

Stepping into her shoes is Onyelucheya, a finance and strategy executive whose career spans senior positions in both banking and the energy sector.

The company said she brings more than two decades of experience managing large-scale business turnarounds, with particular depth in process digitisation, revenue assurance, and operational efficiency — capabilities that will matter enormously as the company seeks to reduce commercial losses and modernise billing systems.

She holds degrees from Nnamdi Azikiwe University and the University of London, and completed executive education at Harvard Business School.

“Our focus remains on delivering improved service, deepening customer trust, and driving sustainable performance,” Onyelucheya said in the statement.

Adesina framed the leadership change not as a rupture but as continuity by design, describing it as a deliberate alignment of leadership for the company’s next growth chapter.