2 days Ago By Guardian Nigeria
SIR: The staff of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (DISCO) in Lagos, Nigeria, were thrown into a state of pandemonium as they were discomfited when their offices were raided by a contingent of Air Force personnel on the afternoon of March 6, 2025. Their offence? The Air Force base had been denied electricity supply, prompting the officers’ invasion of the Ikeja DISCO premises in a manner reminiscent of how Hamas operatives attacked a youth festival on October 7, 2023, during which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 abducted as hostages. This incident triggered a war that is still ongoing, now inching toward its second year.
Last year, Nigeria recorded12 system collapses, meaning there was an average of one per month. Over the past decade, reports indicate that the national electricity grid crashed no fewer than 100 times, often plunging the country into darkness for multiple hours—sometimes even days. The primary reason for the frequent collapse of Nigeria’s electricity system is that the infrastructure, inherited from the colonial era, is an antiquity of sorts.
Due to gross neglect, the system has become so outdated that it should be in a museum for historical reference. Yet, lacking a viable alternative, this aged and poorly maintained infrastructure has remained the primary platform for electricity generation, transmission, and distribution in Nigeria for nearly a century—ten decades of stagnation. That is why electricity is still being delivered intermittently in Nigeria 65 years after the exit of the colonialists who pioneered the construction of the national grid—at least as far back as 1914, when the northern and southern protectorates of Nigeria were amalgamated.
It is particularly the transmission aspect of the three key processes—generation, transmission, and distribution—that is in a terrible state of disrepair. This is because, when the generation (GENCOs) and distribution (DISCOs) aspects of electricity supply were unbundled, transmission remained under government control. So, while GENCOs and DISCOs, under private investors, have to some extent upgraded their equipment, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has been shackled by bureaucratic bottlenecks that define the public sector, preventing it from boosting its capacity through infrastructure upgrades.
As a result, the weak link in the electricity supply chain is the transmission segment, simply because, during the unbundling of the electricity system—when it was transferred from government control to the private sector—transmission was retained by the government. Thus, with a combination of legacy power plants under new management and newly established plants investing significantly in system upgrades, electricity generation has increased from about 4,000 to 15,000 megawatts. Unfortunately, the challenge remains the inadequate transmission capacity of the existing, dilapidated infrastructure—most of which is at least half a century old.
Does it not seem absurd that such a significant volume of electricity is being generated, yet only about a quarter of it reaches end-users? Disappointingly, this is the reality in Nigeria. To address this systemic issue, the government must correct the structural deficiencies that have led to recurring disputes between service providers and consumers, which, in some cases, have escalated into physical confrontations. Thus, mergers and acquisitions should be pursued within the sector.
Given this situation, the government must be prepared to sell off underperforming DISCOs to GENCOs. In turn, these GENCOs should be ready and financially capable of acquiring transmission infrastructure in their respective zones, aligning with global best practices. This restructuring is undoubtedly a herculean task.
However, as the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” Magnus Onyibe is a development strategist and a former commissioner in Delta State..
