[By Abigail Philip David]
Nigerians are facing yet another power outage as the national grid collapsed for the third time in one week. The latest collapse occurred early on Saturday, plunging many states into total darkness.
According to data from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), the grid recorded zero megawatts as of 8:16 a.m., indicating that all 22 power generation companies (GenCos) were down at the time of reporting. This marks the eighth grid disturbance in 2024, with previous collapses happening twice earlier in the week.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has yet to confirm the cause of the latest grid failure, leaving citizens without an explanation for the continued outages.
In February, Nigeria experienced its first blackout of the year when the grid collapsed, dropping from 2,407 megawatts to just 31MW before completely shutting down.
Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu addressed the frequent grid collapses on Friday, explaining that they are nearly unavoidable due to the poor state of Nigeria’s power infrastructure. He emphasized the need for regional or state-based grids to prevent nationwide blackouts, a plan enabled by the Electricity Act signed by President Bola Tinubu in 2023.
Adelabu highlighted that the decentralization of the power sector under the new Act would allow state and local governments to participate in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. He noted that having multiple grids across regions would prevent a single failure from affecting the entire country.
Currently, Nigeria relies on a single national grid, making the entire country vulnerable to power failures. The minister called for more investment in the power sector to prevent further collapses.
