For the third time in less than a week, Nigeria’s national grid has collapsed, plunging the country into widespread darkness. This latest grid failure follows two previous collapses, the most recent of which occurred just two days ago, after a brief restoration of power.
As of 9 a.m. today, it was gathered that the grid was transmitting 0 megawatts to the country’s eleven electricity distribution companies (DisCos), resulting in a nationwide blackout.
This event marks the eighth grid collapse in 2024, with three failures occurring in the past week alone. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which oversees the national grid, has yet to issue an official statement addressing the latest incident.
Several states remain without power as the inability of the grid to transmit electricity has left households and businesses across the nation in complete darkness.
Background
Earlier this week, Nairametrics reported a similar incident when the grid collapsed on Tuesday, only 24 hours after power had been restored from a previous outage. Multiple DisCos confirmed this latest collapse, which occurred around 9 a.m. on Tuesday. Efforts are currently underway to restore electricity, though the frequent disruptions have intensified frustration among both businesses and citizens, who are already contending with a historically unreliable power supply.
Ikeja DisCo, one of the major electricity distribution companies, notified its customers, stating:
“Please be informed that we experienced another system outage today, 15/10/24, at 09:17 hrs, affecting supply within our network. Restoration of supply is ongoing in collaboration with our critical stakeholders. Kindly bear with us.”
Industry Challenges
The recurring collapses highlight long-standing issues within Nigeria’s electricity sector, which is plagued by an unstable national grid and frequent power outages. In 2024 alone, the grid has collapsed seven times by October, leading to severe disruptions in electricity supply and forcing businesses to increasingly rely on generators for continuous operations.
Despite efforts to reform the power sector, including the federal government’s privatization of power generation and distribution in 2013, the transmission system, which remains under government control, has continued to experience significant challenges.
This ongoing instability has prompted stakeholders to call for further reforms, including the potential privatization of the transmission network and the decentralization of power supply, allowing for state-level electricity transmission systems. Such measures, advocates argue, could relieve the pressure on the national grid and improve the reliability of electricity supply across the country.
