A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and one of the country’s leading figures in energy and commercial law will speak at the Energies 3.0 Conference, a virtual international event running from April 22 to 24, 2026, where he will tackle the regulatory gaps that continue to slow investment in Africa’s renewable energy sector.
The conference, organised by the Green Institute of Nigeria, runs daily from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM online. Registration is open at www.greeninstitute.ng/energies2026.
Mr. Wolemi Esan SAN is Deputy Managing Partner at Olaniwun Ajayi LP, one of Nigeria’s prominent law firms. He is recognised for his expertise in complex corporate and commercial transactions, particularly in the energy, infrastructure and finance sectors. His work covers the full lifecycle of major assets including privatisation, acquisition, financing and operational phases. He has advised on numerous high-value mergers and acquisitions, project financings and large-scale infrastructure developments, and is also highly regarded in dispute resolution, with significant experience in arbitration and complex commercial litigation. Chambers Global consistently ranks him as a standout lawyer with a strong market reputation. 
Esan’s argument is that Africa’s renewable energy potential is not the problem. The regulatory environment is.
“There is no gainsaying that Africa holds extraordinary renewable resource potential, from Nigeria’s vast solar irradiation belt to Kenya’s geothermal reserves, yet capital continues to flow cautiously into the region,” he said, adding that investor reluctance is more often than not attributable to a deficit of regulatory certainty at different levels of the value chain.
Drawing on his experience watching deals fall apart, he said the conclusion is unavoidable.
“The frameworks matter just as much as the megawatts,” he said.
Esan said investors require clear rules on several critical matters including timelines for obtaining permits, tariff-setting methodologies, grid connection standards, safeguards against arbitrary policy reversals and payment defaults by state entities.
“In the absence of such clear rules, the continent’s exceptional renewable resources often remain underutilised rather than being developed via bankable projects,” he said.
He said the starting point for fixing the problem is the institutional credibility of sector regulators, noting that across Africa there has historically been a persistent challenge of translating statutory regulatory independence into actual operational autonomy.
“Regulators that are subject to ministerial override, starved of funding, or populated by appointees without technical grounding cannot inspire the confidence that long term infrastructure finance demands,” he said, adding that investors pricing a 25-year power purchase agreement need to know that a licence approved today will not be reversed by a phone call tomorrow.
Esan said land tenure and environmental permitting are two areas that are often underestimated in their transactional significance. He said a project developer without a clear path to unencumbered land title, or facing an opaque or indefinitely prolonged environmental impact assessment process, will be forced to reconsider investment. He called on Nigeria and African countries facing the same problem to digitise title records and establish clear statutory timelines for environmental impact assessment approvals.
On currency risks, he said renewable energy projects are capital intensive and largely denominated in hard currency while revenues are earned in local currency, making credible foreign exchange frameworks essential.
“Without credible foreign exchange frameworks, the FX mismatch becomes an insurmountable structuring problem,” he said, noting that Nigeria’s recent unification of its foreign exchange market is a step in the right direction.
He said robust and accessible dispute resolution mechanisms are non-negotiable for investor confidence.
“An investor who knows that local courts are competent, impartial, and efficient will not be forced to price in the risk premium of institutional failure or avoid making investments,” he said.
Esan also pointed to existing continental commitments that should be driving progress, including the 2010 Maputo Declaration, adopted by African Energy Ministers under the African Union, which explicitly committed member states to “harmonise regulations and promote good governance with a view to creating a conducive climate for increased direct investment, both national and foreign, and especially public-private partnerships.”
He said that commitment underpins ongoing efforts to build a harmonised continental regulatory framework for the electricity sector, including an integrated African energy market, cross-border trade through regional power pools such as the Southern African Power Pool, the West African Power Pool and the Eastern Africa Power Pool, and the investment-facilitating provisions of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
