Total blackout in Abuja, others as power grid collapses

There was a total blackout in Abuja and neighbouring states for several hours on Thursday following the collapse of the country’s power grid, which led to a near zero allocation to the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company.

AEDC is the power firm that supplies electricity to the Federal Capital Territory, Nasarawa, Niger and parts of Kogi states.

The firm’s General Manager, Corporate Communication, Oyebode Fadipe, told our correspondent that the challenge on the grid started since Wednesday.

He explained that AEDC got as little as 20 megawatts of electricity for the most part of Thursday.

It was also observed that most parts of the FCT and neighbouring states of Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa were all in darkness in the morning, afternoon and evening of Thursday.

Power was restored later in the night in some of the affected areas, as Fadipe confirmed that the blackout was due to the instability of the country’s grid.

He said, “The grid has witnessed some form of instability and this led to a severe reduction in our allocation, dropping from about 400MW to 20MW.

“This, of course, is the reason for the blackout in most of our franchise areas today (Thursday). The TCN (Transmission Company of Nigeria) also alerted us about it.”