‘Nigeria nationwide grid collapse a frequent occurrence’ – Researcher

Nigerian Journalist and researcher Adekunle Owolabi has said the collapsing of the electricity grid in Nigeria was a frequent occurrence.

Power was being restored across Nigeria after the country experienced a nationwide outage for about 10 hours on Thursday.

Speaking to The Citizen, Owolabi said this was not the first time the had grid collapsed.

“The collapsing of the grid in Nigeria has actually happened 200 times in the last few years and its not the first time. So, this is not something new.

“In the last 368 days we haven’t had a grid collapse, but it has happened before,” Owolabi said.

Contingency

Owolabi said it was unclear what plans the Nigerian government had in place to avoid future grid collapses.

“We have a new president (President Bola Tinubu) now who just recently installed his cabinet and we just hope that the new minister will have more plans.

“There’s a lot of pressure on him now to actually provide information on what are his contingency plans for this not to happen in the future. They are very much aware that the economy relies so much on the power,” Owolabi said.

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Self-reliance

Owolabi said Nigerians were used to self-reliance during power outages.

“They actually make use of generators and those who can afford solar also use solar. The power situation in Nigeria has been erratic, it goes on an off. It has been unreliable for decades.

“Nigerians have always had this idea of having alternative power, because if you rely on the government it can affect your business and the economy would also have collapsed a long time ago. Several businesses have always utilised alternative energy whenever the power goes off,” Owolabi said.

Owolabi said Nigeria had 12,500MW of installed capacity but produces about a quarter of that.

Grid collapse

It is understood the electrical grid collapsed due to a fire.

“A fire in one of the country’s power plants led to “sharp drops in frequency” that resulted in grid failure early Thursday,” Adebayo Adebulu, Nigeria’s Minister of Power, said on X.

“The fire has been fully arrested, and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time,” Adebulu said.

In 2022, Nigeria’s grid collapsed at least four times, which authorities blaming it on technical problems.

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