Adelabu: FG to Fully Restore Shiroro-Mando Power Lines in 14 days

Ahmad Sorondinki in Kano

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, yesterday said that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has been working assiduously to restore the Shiroro Mando 330 corridor transmission line and supply electricity to northern states within 14 days.

Adelabu, disclosed this during a courtesy call on the Kano state Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf at the Government House in Kano.

The Minister’s assurance came as the company continues to work on addressing the recent power blackout in the 19 northern states.

“I can assure you that our people are on the field working day and night for the partial restoration become full restoration. Two of the lines from Markudi-Bauchi road that were vandalised, one of them is up now and I have been assured by the engineers on the field that by Sunday, we are going to have a fix of the second line, we are going to have full restoration,” he stated.

He said efforts were on going to restore the main transmission line from Shiroro.

“We continue to work on the main transmission line to the North which is Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna line which may take us about 14 days to fix because of the extent of damage done to these transmission lines.

“They used land mines to blow up these installations and affected a lot of towers and all requires a lot of civil work for them to be fully fixed,” he stated.

While describing the power blackout in the north as unfortunate, the minister assured that President Bola Tinubu had no intention of discriminating against any region as wrongly purported.

“The situation is worrisome and unfortunate. The president does not intend to discriminate against any region. We all voted him as Nigerians and he has all of us at heart.

“What happened about the power outage in the past days was not deliberate but unfortunate, it is not a situation we want to repeat itself. If at all it will happen again, we need to have a permanent solution to it” he stated.

Adelabu further said that he and his team were on a working visit to Kano to physically inspect the installations and other infrastructure in the region and to interact with government on the way forward.

Representing the Kano state Governor Abba Yusuf, the Chief of Staff, Bala Sagagi assured the minister that the government will look into ways to invest in the sector and also through the budget provide subsidy for consumers.