For decades, Nigeria’s energy sector, a complex web of oil, gas, and electricity, has been managed with fragmented data and siloed information, leading to inefficiencies in national planning. But a quiet revolution is underway, driven not by new oil wells, but by sophisticated data architecture and artificial intelligence.
At the heart of this transformation is Musa Nanahawau Torera, a Principal Scientific Officer at the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), whose work is fundamentally reshaping how the nation manages its most critical resource.
Over the past decade, Torera has emerged as the lead architect behind Nigeria’s most ambitious energy data initiatives. Her career is a story of translating complex computational science into practical, high-impact national policy. She is not just an analyst; she is the visionary who conceptualized and led the development of the National Energy Databank (NED), a landmark project that consolidated the country’s disparate energy statistics into a single, unified system.
“Before the NED, planning was often based on historical estimates and incomplete data sets from dozens of different agencies,” says Segun Adaju, Chief Energizing Officer of Consistent Energy Limited and a recognized leader in Nigeria’s renewable energy sector.
“What Ms. Torera did was build the central nervous system that the entire sector was missing. She designed the architecture that allows policymakers and private investors alike to see the full picture in real-time, from grid performance in rural villages to national consumption trends. It was a monumental undertaking”.
Her influence did not stop at national borders. Torera was a key technical leader for the Nigeria Energy Calculator 2050 (NECAL2050), an internationally recognized modeling tool developed in partnership with the UK government. This open-source platform, the first of its kind in Africa, helps map out pathways to a low-carbon future and has been shared with several countries as a benchmark for sustainable development planning.
What sets Torera apart is her pioneering application of advanced artificial intelligence within a government framework. She has deployed sophisticated machine learning models, such as LSTM and ARIMA, to improve energy forecasting, reducing prediction errors by over 20% and directly influencing how billions in infrastructure investments are allocated. Her current research focuses on using AI and computer vision to enhance the safety of battery energy storage systems—a critical component for the future of renewable energy.
In February 2023, in recognition of a career defined by field-altering impact, the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), the nation’s premier IT body, elevated Torera to the rank of Fellow. It is the society’s highest honor, a distinction reserved for what the organization estimates to be fewer than 2% of its entire membership. The award is not for long service, but for tangible, significant contributions to the field—a fitting description for a technologist whose work forms the bedrock of Nigeria’s modern energy strategy.
Through her quiet, determined work, Musa Torera has done more than just build databases and models; she has built the foundation for a more efficient, sustainable, and data-driven energy future for Nigeria and set a standard for the continent. She has proven that the most powerful resource is not just the energy underground, but the intelligence used to manage it.
