PRESIDENT TINUBU DIRECTS THE NSA, CDS AND COAS, TO PROVIDE THE SECURITY NEEDED TO FIX THE GRID TRANSMITTING POWER 28-10-24
By Sadiq Aminu President Bola Tinubu has directed Office of the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Chief of Air Staff, to provide the substantial security needed to fix the grid transmitting power to the northern part of the country.
The Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, relayed the President’s directive to State House correspondents after he briefed him on the breakdown of the grid.
It has been about 10 days now since the major grid supplying power to the northern part of the country broke down, throwing the entire region into darkness.
This has in turn thrown businesses and households into unpleasant, tensed situations they did not expect, thus further raising the already high costs of goods and services.
According to the Minister of Power, Mr. Adelabu, attempts were made to rectify the problem, but concerns over the safety of the personnel to be deployed stalled them.
He, however, assured that the problem could be fixed within some few days if the necessary security needed was provided.
“The TCN, they already set out to fix this line. What they have asked for, which has been provided to them now is the security cover of the National Security Advisor through the chief of public staff and Chief of Air Staff to enable them restore the damaged land. And we are optimistic that very soon this will be fully restored”, he maintained.
He said the government was working on providing back-up to power supply until a future major breakdown was fixed.
“We are working on establishing what is called a super grid, which is a backup of failover, optional grid. If the national grid has a problem, there will be an alternative route through which power can be transmitted. That is what we are working on”, the Minister said.
To fix the problem permanently, Mr. Adelabu said the government was planning to provide an embedded power utility for Northern States.
“The most effective way of supplying reliable electricity to the northern part of Nigeria is through our distributed power model, whereby each of the northern states will have an embedded utility, solar scale, solar source. All the 20 states will be insulated and immune from each other, actually made progress in this as we have interested contractors and financiers that are ready to install 100 megawatt each for each of the 20 northern states, which is scalable to 50 megawatts at first, then upgraded to 100 megawatt”, Mr. Adelabu stressed.
Mr. Adelabu said he would meet with the officials concerned to compensate electricity consumers for the days in which they suffered the blackout.