Our Correspondent
The Nigerian government on Tuesday said that power restoration efforts in the northern region of the country are ongoing, with electricity expected to be fully restored by the end of the week.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, disclosed this while speaking at the press briefing organised by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
“So, I can assure you that before the end of this week, light will be restored to the north. We are exploring alternative routes, we are hoping that in a matter of days, light will be restored to the north,” Mr Adelabu said.
Last week, the TCN said its Shiroro-Mando transmission line was damaged due to sabotage, causing a power outage in many northern states.
Speaking on Tuesday, the minister said the government will continue to work on the vandalised lines.
“We (will) still continue to work on the vandalised lines. This must have actually affected a number of parts, not just lines. Amongst the first parts, we know that a lot of single work needs to be carried out before the direct power can show that they are standing properly before the streaming of the light to the south. So, in a matter of two or three days, more than 70 to 80 per cent of the northern part, which is affected, will have light. That is the assurance that we give you,” he said.
“This is not the first time we will be having issues in that line. We’ve had vandalism there before but nobody noticed it because we fixed it within days. But this time it was more severe and the repairs were delayed because of security threats.”
He explained that the vandalisation of transmission equipment in the North is not strange.
“We’re only appealing to our brothers to help us protect these equipments because the resources that could have been used for other projects are being channeled into repairing the vandalised infrastructure. We’re working and hopefully, light will be restored before the end of the week. We’re exploring alternative solutions while we continue to work to fix the vandalised towers,” he added.
The minister noted that there is a bill before the National Assembly for capital punishment for perpetrators of vandalism.
“We want stiffer punishment for these criminals. Also, we need to look at stopping the sale of scrap metals in the country. They are those who encourage vandalism because they buy these things from criminals cheaply.”
In his remarks, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, TCN, Sule Abdulaziz explained that the Shiroro-Mando 330kv line 1 tripped on 9 September, noting that the patrol of the safe area was done, but the faulty section could not be reached due to insecurity.
“Efforts were made by using local vigilantes who confirmed a snap conductor on a tower but they could not identify the tower number. Arrangements were made to use the local group to escort our engineers in the night to effect repairs in order to evade the bandits in the location. Unfortunately, we did not succeed because the bandits got wind of our intentions and laid siege to the area,” he said.
He said minimum supply was maintained to the North-west corridor through the second circuit until 13th October when the second line tripped and failed to stay on the trial reclosure.
He further explained that local vigilantes were again engaged to comb the area but could only access part of the safe area.
Hence, he said TCN solicited the support of the Nigeria Air force, Kaduna for unmanned aerial surveillance on 17th October and the impacted towers were identified.
“They were four in number with three totally collapsed and one number twisted.”
In another related development, he said vandalism of Ugwuaji – Apir 330kV lines was reported on 21 October causing tripping of the lines. Trial reclosure failed and patrol revealed damaged conductors due to vandalism.
This, he said, compounded the transmission of bulk power to the Northern corridor as these lines serve as links between Northern and Southern areas.
“This outage severely affected the wheeling capacity of TCN. The area affected has been secured with help of the Nigerian Army and concerted effort is ongoing on one of the lines for restoration. Restoration of one of these lines will allow TCN to wheel about 400 MW of power in that corridor. Also TCN is intensifying efforts to repair and restore the second line on Ugwuaji – Apir on or by Sunday 3rd November.
“This will avail TCN to wheel substantial quantum of power through Apir to Jos to Kaduna to Kano. Conclusively, TCN is working with ONSA for security of personnel and site on Shiroro – Mando 330kV SC lines for commencement of rehabilitation of impacted towers in this axis,” he said.
