Minister meets Tinubu over electricity situation in Northern Nigeria, suggests long-term solution

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, on Monday briefed President Bola Tinubu on the lack of electricity in many parts of Northern Nigeria for over one week.

Mr Adelabu said he told the president about the cause of the problem.

“We discussed the root cause of this, which was basically due to vandalisation of the transmission lines of Shiroro-Kaduna line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the North,” he said.

The minister confirmed that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had identified the problems, and its engineers are already trying to fix them.

“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 Adviser through the Chief of Army 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 said.

Mr Adelabu’s statements confirm earlier ones by the TCN which said it had gotten security guarantees to proceed with the repairs.

PREMIUM TIMES reports that some of the places where the damage occured are communities where armed bandits operate. The bandits routinely kill and kidnap residents and travellers in such communities.

Mr Adelabu, who briefed journalists after his meeting with the president, said the long term solution of electricity to Northern Nigeria is localised solar plants.

“We believe that the most effective way of supplying uninterrupted, functional, stable and 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,” he said.

Details later…