Breaking: Nigeria’s national grid suffers fresh setback

The national grid has faced yet another setback, as announced by the Nigeria National Grid’s official X handle.

The latest disruption adds to the series of collapses the grid has suffered, with three incidents occurring in the last week of the previous month alone, bringing the total number of disturbances to nine in 2024.

“BREAKING: National Grid suffers another setback. Restoration soon!” read a post on the grid’s official handle, @NationalGridNg, shared at around 3 PM on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has yet to confirm the incident, leaving many Nigerians uncertain about the cause of the latest blackout.

Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu recently addressed the issue, calling the collapses almost inevitable given the current state of Nigeria’s power infrastructure. Adelabu advocated for regional power grids, stating that decentralizing the system is crucial to enhancing stability.

He highlighted that the 2023 Electricity Act signed by President Bola Tinubu allows state and local governments to participate in power generation, transmission, and distribution, a move that could eventually prevent national blackouts by isolating issues within specific regional grids.

In response to the frequent disruptions, the House of Representatives has directed its Committee on Power to investigate the recurring grid failures. Hon. Mansur Manu Soro (Bauchi, PDP) raised the issue in a recent plenary, stressing that continuous power supply is critical to Nigeria’s economic development and growth.

The investigation aims to uncover the underlying causes of these collapses, which have intensified the economic difficulties Nigerians already face, and to propose sustainable solutions for a stable power infrastructure.