The national power grip reportedly collapsed on Saturday, June 16, plunging the whole country into total darkness.
The Punch reports that all the nation’s power plants have been shut down following the system collapse.
The newspaper citing a top executive of one of the nation’s electricity distribution companies who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed the reported collapse of the power grid.
He said the national grid first collapsed on Friday, June 15, before the Saturday incident.
“It’s a general thing; it is a system collapse. It happened yesterday and this morning. All the power plants were shut down,” he said when contacted about the issue.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is currently spending roughly $14 billion a year on off grid diesel generation, according to experts estimation.
It was gathered that over half of the country’s population has no access to grid-connected electricity and those who are connected to the grid suffer extensive power outages.
Nigeria’s current installed capacity is estimated at around 12,500 MW, only half of this is operational, and only about 5,000 MW reaches the grid. Restricted output has been blamed on gas supply problems, water shortages, grid constraints and breakdowns.