Nigeria Experiences Total Darkness, Power Grid Collapses Again

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Peter Uzoho in Lagos

Nigeria’s national electricity grid suffered a total collapse around 6:48pm yesterday with generation dropping to zero megawatts, throwing homes and businesses into complete darkness.

THISDAY learnt that stakeholders had swung into action immediately, as limited supply had since been restored, with Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) receiving 30MW and Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) getting 20MW.

AEDC, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) and Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) confirmed the grid failure in separate statements issued last night.

The Head of Corporate Communications at EKEDC, Emeka Ezeh, disclosed that the collapse had resulted in widespread outages across the company’s network, impacting customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states.

Ezeh further explained that all EEDC’s interface stations with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) were currently without supply, and the company was on standby for updates from the National Control Centre (NCC) in Osogbo regarding the cause of the collapse and restoration efforts.

Similarly, EKEDC confirmed the incident, noting that the grid collapse led to a loss of power supply across its network.

The company assured customers that it was actively working with relevant partners to ensure a quick resolution and will provide updates as soon as more information was available.

In the same vein, AEDC said: “Dear valued customer, please be informed that the power outage being experienced is due to a system failure from the national grid at 6:58pm today, affecting the power supply to our franchise areas.

“Rest assured, we are working with the relevant stakeholders to restore power as soon as the grid is stabilised. Thank you for your understanding.”

As of the time of filing this report, TCN had yet to release an official statement on the cause of the grid collapse. The outage has left millions of Nigerians in darkness, with no electricity distributed to Eko, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Yola Discos.

However, the grid had partially recovered, with AEDC and BEDC being the first to receive power, totalling about 50mw.

Data from the TCN showed that as of 7 pm yesterday evening, only Ibom Power was online , with just 42.7mw.