Nigeria’s national grid has collapsed 12 times in 2024, nine times more than it did in 2023 when it only collapsed three times.
On Wednesday, at 2:06 pm, Nigeria National Grid, an X page known for giving reliable updates on Nigeria’s power infrastructure, shared a post stating that the major grid in the country had suffered a major setback.
“Major Grid setback has occurred! Restoration to commence,” it announced.
Breaking:Major Grid Set Back has occurred!Restoration to commence.— Nigeria National Grid (@NationalGridNg) December 11, 2024
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At 3 pm, the Nigerian system operator’s portal showed that the grid’s latest generation revision for Wednesday was at zero megawatts.
This setback is one of the numerous ones Nigerians have had to deal with since the year began. When the grid suffers any major challenge in this manner, the entire country is thrown into a blackout, and in some cases, business and individual activities are forced to come to a halt.
In 2024 alone, the national grid has suffered setbacks at least 12 times. The major collapses were recorded in October and November when it stopped generating power at least three times each within both months. These outages were also within days of each other; the least being 24 hours.
FIJ found that the frequency of these setbacks have now outmatched the ones experienced in 2023 in nine more events. All three happened after Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, assumed office.
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TheCable reported that the first grid collapse in 2023 happened on September 14, when the Transmission Company of Nigeria claimed that it was caused by a system collapse.
Five days after this first collapse, the newspaper also reported that a second one which led to a total loss of power supply occurred. Then, the third grid collapse followed nearly two months after the second.
The 12 grid collapses occurred despite promises by Tinubu and Bayo Adelabu, the Minister for Power, to resolve the country’s power supply crisis.
This is also in spite of the $1.4 billion loans Nigeria’s power sector has gulped in the 10 years.
The post National Grid Has Collapsed 9 Times More Than It Did in 2023 appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.