Electricity supply to Nigeria will begin to improve within 48 to 72 hours, the Minister of Power Joseph Tegbe said on Friday, as the Federal Government moves to resolve generation and transmission constraints causing recent outages in parts of the country. Tegbe attributed the worsening electricity situation to planned maintenance at Egbin Power Station, the country's largest thermal power generating station located in Lagos, which supplies around 16 percent of total electricity on the national grid. The minister also cited sabotage of critical transmission lines, which has restricted the use of alternative routes to supply electricity to some locations, particularly Lagos, and constraints in gas supply to some thermal power stations.
The outages have affected four states including Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory, with electricity consumers reporting prolonged blackouts that residents said have made the prevailing hot weather increasingly unbearable. Tegbe said his ministry was working with relevant operators to restore affected generating units in phases, with the first units expected to come back online within the next 48 to 72 hours. The minister also committed to improving gas supply and accelerating repairs to damaged infrastructure.
The power crisis has sparked a disagreement between the Transmission Company of Nigeria and Ikeja Electric over the causes of recent supply interruptions. TCN faulted Ikeja Electric's attribution of outages recorded on November 3 and 4 to grid instability, insisting instead that inadequate gas supply to thermal power stations and reduced hydroelectric generation were responsible for the decline in electricity available for distribution. TCN said it could only transmit the energy made available to it and could not transmit energy that was not generated. According to TCN, 68 percent of interruptions recorded on feeders supplying Ikeja Electric resulted from frequency-control load shedding caused by low generation, while 26 percent came from Ikeja Electric's alleged failure to comply with load allocations and faults and maintenance on its distribution network.
Ikeja Electric had apologised to customers on some Band A feeders for failing to meet the minimum daily electricity supply requirement of 20 hours on November 3 and 4. The company's explanation of outages differed from the government's earlier account, which also cited maintenance and operational challenges across the power sector, gas shortages at thermal power stations and reduced output from hydropower plants. The Federal Government said it was working with TCN, the Nigerian Independent System Operator and electricity distribution companies to address the constraints and restore normal supply.
For Nigerian households and businesses already struggling with power cuts, any improvement in supply within the stated timeframe would bring relief from both electricity unavailability and the rising costs of alternative energy sources during maintenance periods.