Almost every street in Port Harcourt has security vigilantes but that did not stop daredevil vandals from attacking the transformer at number 40 Station Road.
The devils came at night, tried to cut off the armoured cable, but were chased away when the number of the vigilantes seemed to overwhelm them.
The next night, they came in bigger force and cut off whatever they wanted. It cost the residents almost one million naira to replace it, and weeks of darkness. In the Niger Delta and Port Harcourt in particular, many streets suffer same fate.
This type of vandalism is, however, seen as small matter. The entire Bayelsa State wallowed in darkness for over four months because of the strike by daredevil vandals. If those raiding transformers on the streets are devils, the ones that attacked Power Towers at Ahoada in Rivers State that supplies Bayelsa State can only be monsters or and Satan himself.
According to transmission officials, the vandals procure hacksaws with which they allegedly cut off the base of the power towers and go off. The result is that the towers begin to fall and drag along with them the high-tension wires.
To understand the situation, an official explained that each tower was procured with over N13m at the time it was installed. Then, the devils would cut off vital ‘organs’ from the towers and go sell for as low as N10,000. By this act, an entire state would be subjected to darkness for months; economy would crash, insecurity would multiply, and small businesses would suffer.
The worst, according sources, is that when transmission officials want to repair them, insecurity would pose another problem because most the towers are in lonely forest areas. Kidnappers and other hoodlums would swarm the entire area.
In the Ahoada case (Bayelsa State power restoration project), the communities would be approached and appeased. They would in turn reach the youths who would then reach the devils so work can be done. In this system, power resides in the bossom of non-state actors.
This scenario seems to have created a dark market from a burgeoning illicit industry of stolen copper and electric wires around the region.
Read also: Minister attributes grid collapses to vandalism, lack of maintenance
Implications for the national grid:
Inside sources said this scenario could also be responsible for the frequent collapse of the national grid.
An official, an engineer, explained how the grid operates. There must be a balance between what enters into the grid and what leaves each day.
To set this, each power producer sends in what it will likely supply on each day. Then, the technical team would set it and lock it. If it is 5,000 units, the machines would be set at 5000. Trouble comes when a producer fails to deliver the pledged volume. This could be due to sudden equipment failure or vandalism on the line delivering power to the national grid.
This disruption would immediately cause sparks that would destroy the already set machines, according to grid experts.
On the other hand, vandals could also destroy an evacuation line and the grid can no longer deliver power. This too causes damage to the sensitive machines.
When this was presented to Emmanuel Anyaegbulam Akpa, a seasoned electrical engineer who is now the General Manager (GM) of Region 10 (Port Harcourt), of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), he suggested remedy.
The GM who briefed the media on activities of the TCN region 10 (Port Harcourt zone) said elsewhere, there is what is called ‘Spinning Reserve’ which makes sure that should there be shortfall from the fixed volume, the reserve is called up to balance the meter. This way, machines won’t break down.
He would not dabble into why Nigeria does not have such a mechanism but suspected that it could be due to low level generation that does not allow the grid to get enough to give out, let alone to keep as reserve.
The rising spate of vandalism of almost everything in Nigeria seems to push the nation to the state of lawlessness and, maybe, chaos.
To protect every public asset, huge sums of money must be voted to pay armed security agents or private guards on daily basis. This has helped to skyrocket cost of production in Nigeria and forced producers to flee to low-cost countries around and ship the products back to Nigeria. With this goes jobs which in turn create hunger and insecurity. Experts say this also makes foreign exchange very expensive due to importation requirements.
Both the Discos and TCN have been making arrests but this seems to be paltry compared with the huge number of vandals out there every night. The GM said they have up to 10 persons undergoing trial or in police custody. The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution (PHED) once said they have over 10 persons on trial at any one period. Some have died in the process of tampering with electricity when they wanted to rob the ‘Dangerman’. Yet, the determination to hack and cart away seems unquenchable.
Meanwhile, TCN, the arm in the power supply chain that delivers power from generating companies (GENCOs) to distribution companies (DISCOs), has unveiled the installation projects said to have been successfully executed in the Port Harcourt region in 2024.
TCN says these installations have brought Port Harcourt City close to power supply adequacy.
Briefing newsmen to review 2024, the General Manager (GM) for Port Harcourt region, Akpa, confirmed the development. He said the most intriguing was the Ahoada vandalized lines to Yenagoa that he said knocked out the entire state (Bayelsa) for four months.
The TCN authorities in region named the project as erecting and restringing of 20 vandalized towers along Ahoada-Yenagoa 132kV line.
The GM also said the completion of the Rumosi station in Port Harcourt has freed more power for the Garden City.
He mentioned the Commissioning of 100MVA power transformer at Port Harcourt Main transmission substation and rehabilitation of the 132/33kV switchyard; the delivery of bulk transmission equipment spare parts including circuit breakers, lighting arresters, battery banks, etc. to the regional store; and the upgrade of Itu 132/33kV transmission substation with additional 60MVA transformer and three outgoing feeders, digital control panels, circuit breakers, isolators and battery banks.
He also mentioned the delivery of 100/110MVA power transformer and accessories at Port Harcourt Main transmission substation; the delivery of a 150MVA 330/132/33kV power transformer at its Adiabo transmission substation under Calabar sub region; the commissioning of the 100MVA power transformer at Umuahia TS, under Aba sub region which he said also boosted the station’s capacity from 64mw to 144mw.
The GM who is in charge of Region-10 (Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Abia, and Imo states), also listed the commissioning of a 125mva power transformer at Port Harcourt Town transmission substation, boosting the station’s wheeling capacity by 100 megawatts.
He said the project also includes the installation of new modern digital control panels, circuit breakers, isolators, and some current transformers.
There was also award of contract for the reconductoring of one circuit of Owerri-Ahoada 132kV 72 kilo meters line; award of contract for the reconductoring of Port Harcourt Main-Port Harcourt Town 132kV double circuit line; and award of contract for the reconductoring of Alaoji-Aba 132kV double circuit line.
The GM said the cut off of power supply to an entire state (Bayelsa State) caused by mindless vandalism of entire towers by heartless hackers was the worst moment in his stay in the Port Harcourt zone, saying it beat his imagination how some people can saw off sensitive parts of power towers costing far above N10m each to go and pawn at peanuts such as N10,000.
He said even when the TCN was ready to repair the vandalized transmitters and towers, the hoodlums and community boys blocked the way with outrageous demands.
He commended the huge support of the Bayelsa State government in terms of security and reaching the communities to allow work to go on. He also put in some kind words on the side of the Rivers State government for also reaching the community boys in the Rivers State (Ahoada) to allow repairs to take place.
He hinted that most times, the Discos complain of inability to pick up or evacuate the power transmitted by TCN, but are quick to pass the blame of blackouts on TCN.
He also gave some hints on what can solve the frequent collapse of the national grid, saying there must be backup power (reserve) to protect sensitive units of equipment that often get damaged whenever there is sudden shortage of supply to grid.
He named short supply to the grid (that damages sensitive equipment) and tampering with lines that evacuate power from the grid as causes of irritating but frequent collapse of the grid.
He also said Nigeria’s power supply is mainly from thermal stations, making gas the main raw stock, but regretted that shortage of gas has been an issue of late.
Most states in the Niger Delta now spend millions every week protecting power supply equipment or face darkness.
Young men push carts around the cities in the region and make it look like they carry junks, but they have often been implicated in theft of copper and other electrical wires. They appear junk but they seem to be junky.
The result of their activities seems to be in the many lorries that leave Port Harcourt and other states in the Niger Delta up north every day, loaded with junks that may not only be junks. Each lory that leaves the cities creates manholes in bridges and gutters constructed with huge sums that left holes in the pockets of governments in the oil region.
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