…Minister cites insecurity
Nigeria’s national grid faces a significant strain as the Federal Government has been unable to repair a critical power transmission line in northern Nigeria due to persistent insecurity in the region.
Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, revealed that the failure to fix the Shiroro-Kaduna-Mando line has placed undue pressure on the grid, resulting in frequent collapses. Currently, only one transmission line, the Ugwuaji-Makurdi line, is supplying power to the northern region.
In October 2024, northern Nigeria experienced a prolonged blackout following the vandalism of the Shiroro-Kaduna transmission line. The incident caused tripping of the 330kV circuit transmission lines between Benue and Enugu, as well as Shiroro and Kaduna, leading to widespread power outages.
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The Senate disclosed that the affected area is overrun by heavily armed terrorists, hindering efforts to restore electricity, though the ministry of power assured that it was addressing the issue working with security agencies.
Adelabu, however, disclosed on Monday during 2025 budget defence session with the National Assembly joint committee on power that the power line was yet to be fixed due to insecurity.
“The Kanduna-Shiroro-Mando line was one of the two major lines that transmit power to the north. The second one, which is the Ugwuaji-Makurdi line, was also vandalised, and we immediately rectified the line as the only source of power to the north.
“As I’m talking to you, we have not rectified the major line, which is the Shiroro-Mando-Kanduna line, which is why our grid is so fragile, because it’s only one line that is still supplying power to the north and is being burdened unnecessarily. And we know the picture of this on the infrastructure technicalities.
“It is still the insecurity that has not led us to fix the Shiroro-Kanduna-Mando line. We tried to fix it but our engineers were chased by terrorists and bandits with heavy weapons, it was like a civil war, that’s how bad it is. We handed over to the security agencies, they have not even fixed it”, Adelabu said.
The minister said that the government was struggling to manage the grid it inherited, which is “still unfortunately very old and dilapidated.”
He informed the lawmakers that the national grid suffered eight collapses in 2024 and not 12 as widely reported, out of which three were partial collapses as a result of generation problems.
“I’m happy to also inform you that out of the eight collapses of the national grid that we experienced during 2024, five were full collapses, while three were actually partial collapses. Out of the five full collapses that we experienced, three out of them were actually due to generation problems.
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We had issues with cellular reduction in generation compared to the power being taken up by the user, which affected the frequent imbalance on the grid. Two collapses were actually from vandalisation problems”, the minister explained
The minister said grid collapses would continue but government will ensure that it reduces the frequency of collapses and endure a very short turnaround time to restore the grid.
He stressed that vandalisation remains one of the biggest challenges in the power sector.
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