Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, has, again, been thrown into another nationwide power outages buoyed by sixteen thermal and hydroelectric plants that are now hit by serious problems.
While eight of the plants have broken down, one hdro is shut; seven integrated plants suffered gas constraint and one other hydro has water management problems.
The Ministry of Power, Sale Mamman, who confirmed this on a statement to Platforms Africa on Thursday, maintained that he was “not unaware of the current power outages/shortages bedeviling many parts of the country.”
The problem, Mamman said in a statement by Aaron Artimas, his media aide, “is caused by the breakdown of some National Integrated Power Plants supplying electricity to the national grid.
The plants are namely, Sapele, Afam,Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji and Ihovbor. The Jebba Power Plant was shut down for annual maintenance.
Seven other integrated Power plants, namely Geregu, Sepele, Omotosho, Gbarain, Omuku, Paras and Alaoji are experiencing gas constraints while the Shiroro plant has water management problems.
This unfortunate development has drastically affected Power generation, thus effectively minimizing the national grid.
In view of this, The Hon Minister of Power Engr Sale Mamman regrets this unfortunate situation and offers his sincere apology to all affected Nigerians on the inconveniences the Power shortages are causing. He assures that the ministry through the appropriate Agencies is working assiduously to rectify the technical problems affecting the plants as well as resolving the gas issues to the others.
Engr Sale Mamman further assures that the national grid will be restored to its previous historic distribution peak of about 5,600MW of electricity achieved early this year, so as to relief Nigerians from the current harsh climatic conditions and restore full economic activities.
