A coalition of Civil Society Organizations across the country have heaped the blame on frequent national grid collapse on the activities of enemies of the state, rather than the Transmission Company of Nigeria, calling on the government to beef up security around Transmission infrastructures.
Stories by John Abulu, Gloria Okonofua and Beatrice Aguneke,
Closely coming on the heels of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission Public Hearing on the frequent collapse of the National Grid, which held on Thursday at the commission’s head office in Abuja, A coalition of civil society organizations have laid the blame squarely on the doorstep of the enemies of state who would rather prefer that the country remains in perpetual darkness, thus frustrating the efforts of the Ministry of Power and the Transmission Company of Nigeria(TCN) from succeeding in their mandate. “The Ministry of Power and the Transmission Company of Nigeria are doing everything humanely possible to handle Nigeria’s aging infrastructure, curb electricity theft, vandalism, and inconsistencies in the regulatory framework, which are the real issues confronting electricity generation, yet, people expect magic for something which has dragged on for decades”, they declared.
The coalition comprising five organizations namely National Project Initiatives, Campaign against Vandalism, Vanguard of Peace, Watchdog for Transparent Governance and Rights Group, wondered at the blame game when the Ministry of Power and Its subsidiaries, particularly the Transmission Company are working around the clock to promote, protect the good health of the aging infrastructures against the backdrop of dishonesty and craze for quick money by those involved in the racket of Generator importation, sabotaging government efforts and destroying High Tension cables all over Grid infrastructure. “It is patently disturbing for uninformed persons to trivialize the serious problems of grid collapse despite the reluctance of the private sector to invest in the sector, inability to expand the existing grid, and distribution network and call a spade a spade to take the bull by the horns”, they pointed out.
Over the years there have been mounting calls to modernize the existing infrastructure and upgrade the grids to significant levels; there have also been calls for transparent and sincere regulatory reforms, in particular, to look into the 330-kilovolt lines which are in desperate need of replacement and to address the deeply worrisome shortage of Gas supply not to mention replacement of the obsolete equipment available.” We decry a situation where the main issues are left and we begin to focus on the peripheral for quick-fix solutions”, the coalition members further revealed. Nigeria’s installed capacity is 12,500 megawatts but is barely able to exceed 4,000 megawatts due to problems enumerated earlier.
But the management of the Ministry of Power and the Transmission Company have been desperately working round the clock to manage the situation, sometimes working in dangerous terrains at the expense of their lives! But now, the coalition observed, the TCN management has injected more life into several substations, and introduced powerful engineering innovations including real-time monitoring of the infrastructure through the highly welcomed SCADA technology, the first of its kind in Africa. The SCADA initiative represents not just a technological upgrade, it also symbolizes the government’s unwavering commitment to enhancing the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of power supply across the nation. The Coalition noted that this is a bold step towards addressing some of the issues holding the sector down.
The coalition therefore exonerated the TCN management from complicity in the breakdown of the national grid and cautioned enemies of the state to be patriotic and change their negative attitude towards moving the nation forward. It also called on fellow CSOs to cooperate with the management and desist from using this development as a platform to blackmail and extort money from the management, “This is time to be patriotic and support government initiatives at revamping the sector”, they noted, stressing that the authorities are human beings who also wish for regular power supply and called on experts to jointly contribute in expanding the national grid to as well as encouraging multi-nationals to also key in. “There is nothing wrong if multinational companies own electricity grid like it is in other countries”, they explained.
