Parts of Nigeria in Blackout as National Grid Suffers Major Disturbance

•Power line tripped, supply restored, says TCN

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Peter Uzoho in Lagos

Nigeria’s wobbly electricity grid yesterday suffered its first major disturbance in 2025, plunging homes and businesses into total blackout as generation dropped to as low as 1334.91mw from over 4,000mw before a line tripped off at about 11am.

THISDAY gathered that this resulted in power outages especially in Lagos, Abuja and Osun before noon as most power plants on the grid lost generation when the incident occurred.

As of 11am, hourly power generation was 4064mw, but this dropped to 1,334mw at 12 pm and 1229.80mw at 1pm. However, as of 2pm, it gradually began to pick up, hitting 1337.69mw and then 1618.6mw. It later climbed to 2026.16mw at 4pm and 2030.16mw at 5pm.

Nigeria has been experiencing frequent power grid challenges due to several factors, including inadequate infrastructure, gas supply shortages, transmission failures, and vandalism. These collapses result in widespread blackouts, disrupting businesses and daily life.

Although the government has made several attempts to reform the power sector, results have been painfully slow.

The latest incident, which is the first in 2025, has brought the number of grid disturbances and collapses in the last 14 months to about 13 and over 160 times since 2013 when privatisation of the generation and distribution segments took place. The grid collapsed 12 times in 2024.

Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) confirmed the grid collapse in a message to its customers posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“Dear valued customer, we regret to inform you that a system disturbance occurred on the national grid at 11:34 am today causing a power outage across our franchise areas.

“While gradual restoration of power supply has commenced, please be assured that we are working closely with relevant stakeholders to fully restore electricity as soon as the grid is stabilised. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we work to serve you better,” the post read

On its part, Kaduna Disco reported the loss of power supply in Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states, attributing the tripping to the loss of power at the 330kV Kainji-Birnin Kebbi line at about 11:34 am.

“We wish to sincerely apologise to our customers in Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states for the loss of power supply since this morning. This is as a result of the tripping of the 330kV Kainji-Birnin Kebbi line at about 11:34 am.

“While awaiting the restoration of the line back into circuit by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) team, we regret all inconveniences this may have caused,” it stated.

However, in a short message sent to THISDAY, yesterday, the TCN spokesperson, Ndidi Mbah, attributed the grid disturbance to a line tripping that affected power supply only in Abuja, Osogbo and Lagos axis.

However, she informed that normal bulk power transmission had been restored.

“There was a line tripping that affected Abuja, Osogbo axis, and Lagos only, but supply has been restored.  Normal bulk power transmission has been restored. It was line tripping,”  she stated.