“I am reliably informed that there was a total National Power Grid Collapse at precisely 12:23pm today. This is one collapse too many.”
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said on Wednesday that he would establish $20b Infrastructure Debt Fund as part of his strategy to solving the problem of incessant collapse of the national power grid.
Atiku who was reacting the latest national power grid collapse, which is said to be total, said due to the priority he places on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, he will propose innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.
This he promises to do by promoting a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) with a capacity to mobilise $20 billion domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy.
The national power grid collapsed again on Wednesday.
The Eko Electricity Distribution Company confirmed that the grid collapse occurred at about 11:27 am.
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“Dear customers, we regret to inform you of a system collapse on the national power grid at precisely 11:27 am today, Wednesday, July 20. We are in talks with the Transmission Company of Nigeria to ascertain the cause of the collapse and a possible restoration timeline.
“We will keep you updated on the situation,” the Disco said via its Twitter handle on Wednesday.
Today’s collapse of the national power grid made it the sixth time this year, having collapsed for the fifth time in 2022 on June 13.
The collapse is expected to, as usual, halt electricity supplies to some parts of the country.
Nigeria’s power grid had collapsed twice in March and twice again in April this year, as the power generation on the system had continued to fluctuate due to various concerns such as gas constraints, water management challenges, and gas pipeline vandalism, among others.
In April, the quantum of electricity on the grid reportedly crashed from over 3,000MW on April 8, 2022, to as low as 10MW around 9pm the same day.
Another collapse of the grid occurred on April 9, 2022, when the system collapsed to 33MW around 01.00 hours after it had earlier posted a peak generation of 3,281.50MW at 00.00 hours the same day.
Also, the national grid collapsed twice in March and this happened within a space of two days, a development that made the Federal Government summon a meeting of stakeholders to address the issue.
Reacting to the latest collapse which has plunged many parts of the country into darkness, Atiku tweeted.
“I am reliably informed that there was a total National Grid Collapse at precisely 12:23pm today. This is one collapse too many. It is the 6th time this is happening this year alone,” the former Vice President Tweeted.
“Due to the priority that I place on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, I am proposing innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.
“I’ll promote the incentivisation, with tax breaks, a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to primarily mobilise domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy.
“The IDF will have an initial investment capacity of approximately US$20 billion.
In addition, I’ll cause the creation of an Infrastructure Development Credit Guarantee Agency to complement the operation of the IDF by de-risking investments in infrastructure to build investor confidence in taking risks and investing capital. -AA”
