Kehinde Fajobi
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has pledged that electricity will be restored to northern Nigeria within three days.
Adelabu made this assurance on Tuesday while addressing senators’ concerns about the ongoing regional power outage and repeated grid collapses nationwide.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria had reported that on October 22, the 330-kilovolt Ugwaji-Apir transmission lines tripped, leading to outages in the North-East, North-West, and parts of North-Central Nigeria.
Nafisatu Ali, Executive Director of the Independent System Operator, later revealed that insurgents had vandalised the Shiroro-Kaduna line, which supplies power to the region.
In response to the crisis, President Bola Tinubu directed the military to protect workers conducting repairs on the damaged lines.
As a short-term solution, Adelabu announced that electricity would be channelled through the Ugwuaji-Makurdi line to restore power to about 80% of the affected areas.
“Power will be restored to the North in two to three days. We will use the Ugwuaji-Makurdi transmission line for temporary purposes,” Adelabu explained.
He also confirmed that security agencies are assisting with access to the grid for full repairs.
“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 added.