The Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, said on Monday that the Federal Government had not found the antidote to the frequent collapse of the National Grid, a development that shut down power supply to the whole country many times in 2024.
He told senators In Abuja that there was no guarantee yet that the system would not continue to crash in 2025, so long as insecurity, vandalism, and poor infrastructure remained the major threats to the grid.
Adelabu, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Power in Abuja on Monday to defend the power sector budget for 2025, also disputed the widely quoted figure that the country’s national grid collapsed 12 times in 2024, representing at least one collapse in each of the 12 months of the year.
Faulting the figure, the minister said the grid collapsed “only eight times and not 12 as always reported.”
He said to achieve a permanent end to grid collapse would require concerted efforts, including tackling insecurity and the frequent vandalism of power infrastructure.
“There is no guarantee that there will be no more grid collapse. What we can do is to make sure that it is minimal and that after a collapse, we rectify it as quickly as possible,” the minister stated.
He told the committee that the ministry was working assiduously with security agencies to manage the situation and restore the system back to work as soon as another collapse occurred.
Speaking further, Adelabu said the ministry worked hard in 2024 to stabilise the grid, adding, “We had plans to stabilise the grid and other transmission infrastructure. I am 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 of them were actually due to generation problems where we had issues with sudden reductions in generation compared to the power being taken up by the users, which affected the frequency imbalance on the grid, and the reason for this was not far-fetched.
“Out of the five, three were from generation, while two were from vandalism issues, and I don’t want to emphasise this vandalism issue because we are all aware of what happened.”
He disclosed that due to insecurity challenges and resistance by bandits, one of the main power supply lines to northern Nigeria, the Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna 330 kV line, had yet to be restored to supply power to some parts of the region.
The region currently relies on the Uwaji-Apir-Makurdi 330 kV line, already burdened by similar threats of vandalism, in the interim.
The minister said the cost of repairs was clearly beyond the budget of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which had so far sourced unbudgeted funds of up to N9 billion to make repairs.
The minister Informed lawmakers that the criminals used dynamite and other deadly explosives to destroy as many as nine towers on the line.
“We had to work with our soldiers and other agencies. The first time we went there, it was like a civil war situation.
“They (bandits) had to be attacked from the air,” he added.
However, on power generation, he said from 4,100 megawatts in 2023, it increased to 5,528mw in 2024, explaining that this came about by some improvement in infrastructure courtesy of the current administration.
As part of plans to tackle insecurity, Adelabu spoke of a proposal to provide solar lights and Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras on highways in the country to monitor the movements of vandals and other criminal elements, among other projects with a sub-head of N200 billion in the budget.
He said the power sector would need about N1.8 trillion in 2025 alone to fix projects, though he admitted before the committee that it would be a mirage to hope to get such an amount of money.
Meanwhile, the committee, which was chaired by Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, heavily criticised electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) over the alleged non-addition of value to the power chain in 11 years of the privatisation of the sector.
“What type of privatisation have we done? My colleagues here (senators) are the ones still buying transformers for their communities.
“We should consider taking the sector back and managing it wholly,” Abaribe told the minister.
But, Adelabu, in putting up a defence for the DisCos, argued that it was unfair to use the same yardstick in judging all of them, suggesting that they should be assessed on an individual basis.
“Some of the DisCos have injected additional infrastructure, while others have been adamant.
“It’s better to look at the contracts individually and take each Disco name-by-name,” the minister insisted.
