As reported by TVCNews, in an emergency meeting held in Abuja, Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, expressed his displeasure at the recent power grid incident, emphasizing its potential to undermine the significant progress made in the past year.

The meeting, which included leadership from the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), sought to address the situation promptly.

According to a statement by his spokesman, Bolaji Tunji, the Minister highlighted that the strides made in increasing power generation and distribution to 5,527 megawatts—the highest in three years—should not be jeopardised by such setbacks.

Mr Adelabu also constituted a forensic investigation committee with a mandate to advise the government on necessary solutions to make the national grid robust and reliable in addition to the ongoing efforts of the government like the Presidential Power Initiatives (PPI) and the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project (NETAP).

The Committee is to also establish the root cause of both incidents especially a review of potential sabotage on the system.

The Committee will holistically review the national grid stability and identify investments and technical capacities required to make the grid smart and resilient.

In addition, a technical team has been deployed to access the critical nodes on the national grid to identify potential vulnerabilities and proffer recommendations to address these vulnerabilities to prevent future disruptions to the grid.

On Monday, October 14, there was a partial collapse due to the tripping of a line at the Jebba Transmission Substation and recurring fault at the Osogbo Transmission Substation.

Efforts to restore the grid further resulted in a setback the following day.

The System was however fully restored on Wednesday, October 16, 2024.

There was no grid collapse on Tuesday as was widely speculated as the setback was a continuation of Monday’s restoration efforts on the grid.

Also what was described on Saturday, October 19, as grid collapse was a deliberate protective shut down of the grid as a result of the explosion of the Jebba transformer. And this was restored within two hours. “ What we had were more of grid disturbances than collapses”. Preliminary assessment of Jebba incident suggested that the explosion was as a result of ageing equipment unrelated to the initial collapse.

The six-member committee are; Engr. Nafisat Ali, Executive Director, Independent System Operator (ISO), who leads the committee, Dr. Chidi Ike, Commissioner, NERC, Engr. Ishola (GM. National Control Centre (NCC) , Engr. Emmanuel Nosike, Director, Transmission, Federal Ministry of Power (FMoP), Engr. Ali Sharifai (GM, Transmission Service Provider (TSP) and Mr. Adedayo Olowoniyi, Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power.