The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced that electricity will be restored to Northern Nigeria within 72 hours following recent disruptions attributed to vandalism and security threats.
Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, made this announcement while briefing the Senate committee on power, chaired by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe.
The minister confirmed that temporary measures, including rerouting power through the Ugwuaji-Makurdi transmission line, could restore electricity to nearly 80% of the affected northern states.
“Power will be restored to the North in two to three days. We will use the Ugwuaji-Makurdi transmission line for temporary purposes,” Adelabu stated. He assured that work on fully restoring power across the north is underway, with repairs expected to be completed within two weeks.
“We are working with security agencies to access the grid currently occupied by vandals. I assure you that within the next 14 days, the repairs will be completed, and power will be fully restored to the north,” he emphasized.
The recent power outage began on October 22 when the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) reported issues with the 330-kilovolt (kV) Ugwaji-Apir transmission lines, which serve critical northern regions.
These lines tripped, leading to widespread blackouts in the North-East, North-West, and parts of the North-Central regions. According to Nafisatu Ali, Executive Director of the Independent System Operator, the Shiroro-Kaduna line supplying northern Nigeria was sabotaged, allegedly by insurgent groups.
In response to the disruption, President Bola Tinubu directed the Nigerian military to secure power facilities and support TCN engineers working to repair the lines. The power ministry has since labeled the incidents as acts of terrorism, aiming to discourage further attacks.
Chief Adebayo Adelabu, during a briefing organized by TCN, condemned these actions, describing them as deliberate efforts to destabilize power supply in the region.
To mitigate the outage, efforts are in place to deliver at least 400 megawatts to the northern states through the eastern corridor by the weekend. “I can assure you that before the end of this week, light will be restored to the north,” Adelabu stated, adding that efforts are underway to protect vulnerable transmission towers.
He urged citizens to support the preservation of national infrastructure, emphasizing that “resources that could have been used for other projects are being channeled into repairing the vandalized infrastructure.”
