1. Nigeria’s National grid is older than the contraption called Nigeria, having been installed in 1951 along with 23 distribution and transmission stations.
2. Within 74 years of its existence, the Moribund, end of life grid collapsed 838 times, with 722 incidenting with the return of democracy in Nigeria. From 2015 to date, the grid collapsed 113 times, 93 times during Buhari’s.8 years of Locus and 20 times under Tinubu’s comedy of tragedies.
3. From 1951 to 2022, over N43 trillion was said to have been spent on periodic maintenance and upgrades.
4. With the twice in a month collapse, it would appear that the more money budgeted for the grids and 23 transmission stations, the more the frequency of collapse.
5. It is clear that our national grid is fast approaching extinction on account of:
A. outdated technology with no willingness to upgrade it.
B. Institutionalized decades of outright stealing, theft, looting, and sabotage culture. You may recall how Efcc charged former power minister, sale mamman for alleged stealing of N33 Billion from the Mambilla.powerml project money.
C. Importers of generating plants, who happen to be modtly former Nepa staff, Bank Executives, federal ministry of power staff, former and serving senior civil servants etc will never allow the national grid to remain functional because it will hinder and minimise their profits from generators importation.
D. Assorted suppliers of suppliers of diesel at the black markets can spend their last Naira to sabotage the national grid and transmission stations to sustain their hold on milking diesel customers nationwide.
E. Sadly, the current crop of politicians under Tinubu/kashim/Akpabio, from anti people economic policies and political miscalculations, etc, have prioritised dispossessing Nigerians through all form of levies and taxes
Written by Mahdi Shehu
Public Affairs/ Political Commentator
