Olusola Bello
Except something urgent is done, the whole of South Western part of the country may soon be thrown into total black out. No thanks to the inefficient, incompetent and docile administrators at the helms of affairs in the power sector in the country.
Currently, the power supply to the region has become abysmally low that a good number of electricity consumers are getting what can be described as candle light.
This has been blamed on low generation by the various generating plants because of gas constraints and weak and unreliable grid system
Because of this problem, Ibadan Electricity Distributing Company (IBEDC) has put out a public notice informing the public of the current state of things in the industry, and the reason why the supply to them is so.
According to the public notice, Oyo and Ogun states are those affected, but analysts say that if these two states are affected, states like Osun, Kwara and parts of Ekiti would certainly be affected as they are fed from Oyo and Ogun states.
The public Announcement titled Low Power Supply in Ibandan and Ogun, read thus: “Dear esteemed customers, due to a drop in load allocation from national grid occasioned by low generation from, customers within Ibadan and Ogun State metropolis are experiencing low power supply. We sincerely apologise for the inconveniences generation companies GenCos”, signed for Ibadan and Ogun Region
Other industry players spoken to by Business Standards said the problem is general and not only limited to the two states mentioned. They said states like Kogi,Edo, Kaduna and a host of others across the country are current witnessing erratic power supply.
A chief executive of one of the Discos told Business Standards that the situation is not better in Lagos where the companies there are struggling to meet customers demand.
According to him, the problem is general. The grid has its own problem just as there is gas constraints to the generation companies.
Recently, the Federal Government apologised to Nigerians over power outages and shortages in various parts of the country.
This was caused by the breakdown of some National Integrated Power Plants (NIPP) supplying electricity to the national grid, the Federal Ministry of Power explained in a statement on Thursday.
Aaron Artimas, who is the Special Adviser to the Minister on Media and Communications, listed the affected plants to include Sapele, Afam, Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji, and Ihovbor.
He noted that while the Jebba Power Plant was shut down for annual maintenance, the Shiroro Power Plant has water management problems.
Seven other integrated power plants – Geregu, Sepele, Omotosho, Gbarain, Omuku, Paras, and Alaoji – are experiencing gas constraints.
Artimas decried that the condition of the plants has drastically affected power generation, leading to effectively minimising the national grid.
In a series of tweets, the Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, regretted the unfortunate situation and offered his apology to all affected Nigerians for the inconveniences the power shortages have caused.
He, however, assured Nigerians that the ministry through the appropriate agencies was working assiduously to rectify the technical problems affecting the plants, as well as making effort to resolve the gas issues to the others.
The minister stated that the national grid would be restored to its previous historic distribution peak of about 5,600MW of electricity achieved earlier in 2021, so as to relieve Nigerians from the current harsh climatic conditions and restore full economic activities.
