On Saturday, Nigeria’s national power grid faced a major setback, causing a total blackout in many Nigerian states. Just four days earlier, the grid had collapsed twice in less than 24 hours.

This was not new for Nigerians; total blackouts due to grid failures remain a recurring issue. In truth, the problem is so persistent that it has been a major talking point for potential political officeholders and government appointees.

For example, in his New Year speech, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said he recognised the importance of the power sector for the country’s economic transformation.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: National Grid Suffers ‘Major Setback’ After Collapsing Twice In One Week

Tinubu promised that his administration was working on projects to “strengthen the reliability of our transmission lines and optimise the integrity of our national grid”.

Similarly, Bayo Adelabu, the Minister for Power, has talked about “addressing the challenges our national power grid faces”. He pledged to meter more households and focus on renewable energy options

However, despite these promises, the grid has collapsed at least 10 times since Tinubu took office in May 2023 — seven times so far in 2024.

Ignoring the recent failures, the last major incident before Saturday happened in August. The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) confirmed that the grid went down at 2:55 pm on the said day.

Earlier this year, Nigeria experienced its first national blackout in February, when system capacity plummeted from 31MW to zero in just an hour, according to a BusinessDay report. March saw another failure, with reports pinning the time at 4:28 pm. In April, the grid dropped from 2,583.77MW to just 64.7MW.

July marked the fourth failure. At peak failure, power plants declined to only 0.80 MW. In September, the grid collapsed twice, once on the 14th and again on Saturday.

On May 1, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) reported a reduction in system collapses. It noted a 76.47% decrease over the last five years.

From 2017 to 2022, the International Energy Association said Nigeria recorded a total of 46 grid collapses.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINER: Why National Power Grid Keeps Collapsing

Meanwhile, both TCN and the National Electricity Regulatory Council (NERC) have linked the most recent grid failure to a transformer explosion.

On Saturday, TCN’s Ndidi Mbah explained that a current transformer exploded at the 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation.

Adelabu had said that the incessant collapse was due to infrastructural decay. “We keep talking about grid collapse — whether it’s a total collapse, partial collapse, or slight trip-off. This is almost inevitable given the state of our power infrastructure,” he said.
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