Several Nigerians spend Christmas in darkness

News Update

Many Nigerians across the country are celebrating this year’s Christmas in darkness following a nationwide drop in power supply.

The Nigerian Independent System Operator, NISO, which oversees the national grid, had earlier blamed the explosion that occurred at the Escravos-Lagos Gas Pipeline in Delta State, owned by the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, for the drop in power supply nationwide.

In an update on Wednesday night, NISO noted that the power supply would return to normalcy ‘soon’ as the gas pipeline repair work by NGPTC is ‘near completion’.

However, the power outage has persisted for the majority of Nigerians on Christmas Day.

The situation further worsened the persistent challenge in the country’s power sector despite its privatization in November 2013.

Data released by NISO on Wednesday showed that the eleven electricity distribution companies in Nigeria received 3,272 megawatts of electricity from the National Grid for onward distribution to over 250 million Nigerians.

This means Discos resort to load shedding and outright outages in parts of their area of coverage.

Media reports that Nigeria’s available electricity supply capacity has remained stagnated around 3000 to 5000 megawatts in the past 12 years.

Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, had in 2024 promised that the country would achieve a target of 6000MW of electricity by the end of December 2025.

Speaking on the development in an interview, the National President of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo, said the Nigerian government cannot build something on nothing.

“You can build something on nothing.

“If you don’t get it right with the process and systems, the fallout is what we are expressing.

“We did not get it right pre- and post-privatization of the power sector,”