Victor EzejaThe national power grid has collapsed for the second time in three days, throwing many parts of Nigeria into total blackout. The first one occurred on Tuesday, 5th November when it crashed to zero megawatts around 1:52 pm, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). It said it was due to a series of tripping of lines and power generators.
In a statement signed by TCN General Manager of Public Affairs, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah, the company assured that its engineers were working hard to restore power to all parts of the country.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelWhile residents in some parts of the country where electricity has been restored heaved a sigh of relief, they were greeted with news of another grid collapse, returning them to darkness. In a post on X around 12 pm, Nigeria National Grid wrote: “Another grid setback experienced.” The grid collapse occurred at about 11:30 am.
In another update, it published data on the hourly generation reading of the Generation companies (GenCos), which showed that as at 01:50 pm, Afam VI generated only 4.10MW, while 19 other GenCos recorded 0MW of electricity.
Several electricity distribution companies (DisCos) corroborated this on their social media platforms.
READ ALSO: Grid Collapse: We’re Working To Restore Power – TCN
Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (Ikeja DisCo) said: “Dear Customers, please be informed that we experienced a system outage today 07 November 2024 at 11:29hrs affecting supply within our network.
“Restoration of supply is ongoing in collaboration with our critical stakeholders.”
Also, in a message to its customers, the Jos Electricity Distribution Plc said the current power outage experienced within its franchise states was due to loss of supply from the national grid. it urged customers to be patient as restoration is ongoing.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has set up an investigative panel to unravel the cause of incessant grid collapses in the country.
While receiving a report from the panel on Wednesday, 6 November, the minister expressed optimism that the frequent collapses of the power grid system could be curbed with the implementation of far reaching reforms of the transmission sub-sector of the electricity industry.
The minister assured that the report will be carefully studied, reviewed and a final copy presented to President Bola Tinubu for full implementation. The committee highlighted various factors affecting power grid system management to include vandalism of power infrastructure, ageing infrastructure, lack of free governors at power generation plants, uncoordinated maintenance schedules and lack of adequate human capacity.
The frequent grid collapse has implications on businesses and compounds the hardship faced by Nigerians.
READ ALSO: Between Our National Greed And The Frequent Power Grid Collapse
Reacting to the incident a netizen, Jones, stated in a post on X thus: “Which kind of calamity has befallen Nigeria that every week our grid must collapse. This is so annoying to be honest. Does it mean we don’t have able hands managing our power station?”
Tola Olaosebikan wrote: “Zero MW generation of power for a country of 230 million people. This has happened frequently in the last 1 year. This isn’t good for a nation, businesses and its people.”
Prime Business Africa reports that this is the ninth time the country is experiencing grid collapse this year.
Another X user, Jade, said it is time for Nigeria to decentralise the national grid to avoid plunging the entire country into power blackout whenever there is a partial disturbance on the power installations.
Reacting to the incident, a netizen, Jones, stated in a post on X thus: “Which kind of calamity has befallen Nigeria that every week our grid must collapse. This is so annoying to be honest. Does it mean we don’t have able hands managing our power station?”
Tola Olaosebikan wrote: “Zero MW generation of power for a country of 230 million people. This has happened frequently in the last 1 year. This isn’t good for a nation, businesses and its people.”
Prime Business Africa reports that this the tenth time the country is experiencing grid collapse this year.
Another X user, Jade, said it is time for Nigeria to decentralise the national grid to avoid plunging the entire country into power blackout whenever there is a partial disturbance on the power installations.
Reacting to the frequent power outage due to national grid failure, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, stressed the need for the Federal Government to come up with a lasting solution to the problem.
In a statement via his official X handle, Mr Obi lamented that while South Africa which was the second-largest economy in Africa behind Nigeria until recently, and with a quarter of the country’s population, is generating and distributing about 40,000 MW of electricity, “Nigeria struggles to generate and distribute just 10% of that.”
“Yet, despite this stark disparity, Nigerians continue to endure daily power outages,” he added.
He said South Africa recently celebrated seven months of uninterrupted power supply.
Speaking on how many Nigerians now view comments about national issues from ethnic and religious differences, Obi said nobody is unaffected by the challenges in the country.
He urged Nigerians to shun “primordial sentiments and elect leaders who are competent, capable, and have the vision to transform our nation from a consumer-driven economy to a productive one by investing our meagre resources in critical areas of development like health and education, lifting our people out of poverty, and ensuring increased electricity production and distribution.”
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
