Four institutions in the power sector offered overlapping, and sometimes competing, explanations this week for the worsening electricity supply in Nigeria. Their statements arrived within 48 hours.
Lagos, Abuja and three other states sat in the dark while they did it, in the middle of a heatwave. The darkness is real. The explanation keeps moving.
On Thursday, the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) said limited gas at thermal plants and low water at hydro dams had cut generation. The Ministry of Power said much the same and ruled out a systemic grid failure.
Neither statement, as published, offered a figure for the gas shortfall or the reservoir levels. Without them, the public cannot test how much of the fall in electricity supply in Nigeria each cause explains.
NISO data reported by Vanguard showed generation sliding from a Wednesday peak of 3,996 megawatts to 3,659MW by 3pm on Thursday. Distribution companies were receiving a combined 2,926MW.
That is a dip of about 8 per cent in a day. The complaints about electricity supply in Nigeria had been building for far longer.
Ikeja Electric, which serves much of Lagos, apologised to Band A customers for missing their 20-hour daily minimum on 25 and 26 October. It apologised again for 3 and 4 November. Band A customers pay higher tariffs for that promise. Those who rely on dependable electricity supply in Nigeria had heard little else.
Yet the Ministry of Power’s own account was that the affected states had recently seen clear gains.
Then came Friday, and a public quarrel.
In a statement carried by Nairametrics, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) accused Ikeja Electric of misleading customers by blaming grid instability. TCN said it “cannot transmit energy that is not generated”. Its records for 1 and 2 November, it added, put 68 per cent of interruptions on Ikeja feeders down to load shedding forced by low generation. Another 26 per cent traced back to Ikeja Electric’s own faults or its failure to follow load allocations. The last 6 per cent involved TCN maintenance, switching or line limits.
TCN’s account is one of too little power, not faulty wires. It is a different story from the one Ikeja Electric told.
TCN also pointed to Section 67 of the Electricity Act 2023, under which NISO alone decides the root cause of a shortfall. Distribution companies, it said, should stick to NISO’s verified information.
The minister’s list the same day ran longer than NISO’s.
In his account of electricity supply in Nigeria, Joseph Tegbe named planned maintenance at Egbin Power Station and gas constraints at some thermal plants. He added sabotage of key transmission lines, which he said had narrowed the routes for supplying Lagos. The first generating units would return, he promised, “within the next 48 to 72 hours”.
Even the number of affected states changed. Thursday’s statement listed five areas. Tegbe counted four.
Egbin matters more than most plants. Tegbe said the Lagos station provides about 16 per cent of the grid’s electricity. In the plant breakdown Vanguard reported, it was delivering 111MW, about 3 per cent of the 3,689MW then on the grid. Its installed capacity is 1,320MW.
Thursday’s statements, as published, did not name the plant.
The sabotage claim carries even less detail. Tegbe’s statement, as published, named no lines, no locations and no dates. TCN’s review of Ikeja Electric’s feeders found no fault or trip on its own equipment. The two claims need not clash, because TCN examined two days of records for one distribution company. But until someone shows which lines were hit, the claim explains little about electricity supply in Nigeria.
For electricity supply in Nigeria, the question underneath is older than this week. Gas, and who pays for it.
In March, Joy Ogaji, chief executive of the Association of Power Generation Companies, said gas suppliers had told generators to “put money on the ground” before gas would flow. By her count, generators were owed N6.8 trillion by February.
On 9 October, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc began settling N728.979 billion of legacy debts owed to generators and their gas suppliers, N402 billion of it in cash bonds. It said stronger finances would help lift electricity supply in Nigeria.
That was less than a month before gas became the first explanation again.
No official has tied this week’s shortfall in electricity supply in Nigeria to unpaid gas bills. The question is hard to avoid all the same, because NISO has not said why gas is limited.
Tegbe set his own bar for electricity supply in Nigeria when he took office in June. “I will not promise what I cannot deliver, but I promise visible improvement,” he told State House correspondents.
He has now given himself until early next week. The lights will either answer the statements, or the statements will have to answer to the lights.
