Nigeria Plunges Into Darkness As Power Allocation To Abuja Drops To 15MW

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Nigeria Plunges Into Darkness As Power Allocation To Abuja Drops To 15MW

Fear of impending darkness all over the nation has finally become reality as power allocation to Abuja yesterday evening dropped to mere 15 megawatts (MW) from an average of 450MW.


LEADERSHIP gathered from impeccable sources last night that the final straw that broke the camel’s back was the system collapse at the Shiroro power plant at about 4:10pm yesterday.


While other major power plants such as Egbin, Olorunsogo 1 and 11, Omotosho 1 and 11, Sapele and Ihorvbor NIPPs, among others, had been forced to shut down due to non-availability of gas as a result of the ongoing strike by oil workers in the country, the Shiroro plant which was helping to prevent the country from being plunged into total darkness also experienced system collapse.


Consequently, a source informed LEADERSHIP that only sensitive installations within Abuja city centre are supplied electricity while all other parts of the FCT, including towns in Niger, Nasarawa, and Kogi states covered by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), are in total darkness.


This development means that almost all other states of the federation are currently in total darkness, as the 15MW is a privileged preference given to Abuja as the nation’s capital.


Last Thursday, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali disclosed that power generation nationwide had dropped from 4,800MW to 1,327MW, leading to massive load shedding across the country.


Following that development, the management of AEDC issued text messages apologising to its customers in the FCT, Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger states.


Power allocation to the company from the national grid gradually dropped from about 450MW daily to less than 200MW in recent times.


By Friday May 22, 2015, allocation to the company was 145MW, which reduced to 115.6MW on Saturday and Sunday, May 23 and 24, 2015, respectively.


But yesterday’s system collapse of Shiroro power plant has now reduced it to a meagre 15MW, it was learnt.


In view of this, up to about 6:50pm yesterday, only sensitive installations within the Central Business District in the capital territory had electricity supply.
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