Nigerians were thrown into darkness, Friday, after the national electricity grid collapsed again.
Various electricity distribution companies announced the breakdown, the fifth this year, after prolonged hours of outage experienced in some parts of the country.
AEDC, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, confirmed the collapse on Twitter late Friday Night.
“Please be informed that there has just been a national grid collapse causing an outage in our franchise areas. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and appeal that you bear with us while we await restoration from the TCN. We regret all inconvenience caused,” the AEDC said.
The Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company said, “Dear Esteemed Customers, the management of Kaduna electric regrets to inform you that the current outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to a collapse of the national grid.”
“The collapse occurred at about 18:29 pm this evening. Normal power supply shall be restored as soon as the grid is restored.
“We sincerely apologise for all inconveniences,” the spokesperson of the company, Abdulazeez Abdullahi said.
The Jos Electricity Distribution Company experienced the collapse at 6:30 p.m. across its distributing states of Bauchi, Benue, Gombe and Plateau.
“Dear customers, there was a loss of supply as a result of the system collapse of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) about 6:30 p.m. across all our franchise states of Bauchi, Benue, Gombe and Plateau,” it said.
The Eko Electricity Distribution Company said, “Dear Esteemed Customers, a planned outage has been scheduled by our TCN partners for Saturday, April 9, 2022 between 9am and 3pm. This is to enable the TCN crew repair a wounded conductor between Tower #9 and #10 on the Ajah/Alagbon 330kV Line.”
In Nigeria, privately-managed distribution companies directly supply electricity to consumers and so have the responsibility to let their customers know the reason(s) for the power blackout.
Nigeria operates a central electricity grid system. This grid had suffered collapse twice in March 2022, and earlier in January and February this year.
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, had blamed the constant collapse on poor maintenance and shortage of gas. He, however, said the government had upgraded four power plants as part of efforts to improve the sector.
