The energy crisis ravaging Nigeria worsened on Monday with the collapse of power supply in many states, including Lagos, and a massive cancelation of flights over the shortage of aviation fuel.
The collapse of the nation’s national grid, the second in the year, cut off the power supply in at least seven states including Lagos in the southwest to Kaduna in the north, to Enugu, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States, in the southeast.
In Lagos, the company responsible for power distribution in part of the state, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, sent mobile-phone text messages to its customers, informing them of the development and the plans being made to restore power to the system.
“Dear esteemed customer, a system collapse occurred on the national grid at 10:40 am today, leading to outages across our network.
“We are working on the situation with our TCN partners and will keep you updated. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.” the text message read.
In Kaduna, the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company informed its customers about the system collapse, with an assurance that the work was going to restore power to them.
“We regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to System Collapse of the National Grid which occurred at about 10:40 am,” the firm said.
“Power supply shall be restored as soon as the National Grid is powered back. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience,” the text message read.
Similarly, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Plc informed its customers in the whole of the southeast about the system collapse, which had affected power supply to Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States.
“The Enugu Electricity Distribution PLC (EEDC) wishes to inform her esteemed customers in the South East of a general system collapse which occurred this morning, Monday, 14th March 2022 at 10:40 am.,” the EEDC said in its notice signed by its Head, Corporate Communications, Emeka Ezeh.
“This is the reason for the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network.
“Consequently, all our outgoing feeders are out and supply to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States are affected by this development.”
As at the time of filing this report, about 7:32 in Lagos, the power was yet to be restored.
One report indicated that Nigeria’s total power generation fell to as low as national 1,393.40 MW.
The power Generating Companies have blamed the lower power generation in Nigeria on huge sums of money owed them by customers. According to them, the amounts owed them over the years are N214.93 billion in 2015; N273.32 billion in 2016; N236.47 in 2017, N264.08 billion in 2018, and N256.97 billion, N266.01 billion and N120.25 billion in 2019,2020 and 2021 respectively.
Just as the Generating companies are facing funding challenges, so do the Distribution Companies. Recent reports by the DisCos showed that most of them are unable to collect revenue from their customers. They blame this in part on energy theft, as many customers are able to tap into the power system to take light without being metered.
In the aviation sector, travelers at the various airports had their scheduled flights rescheduled as the airlines could not access aviation fuel.
In Lagos, airlines that rescheduled their flights on Monday included Air Peace, Arik Air, Dana Air, Ibom Air, and Max Air
Aviation fuel, commonly referred to as Jet A1, has been rising in price in recent times, putting the local aviation industry in distress. The price has risen from about N190 per liter in January to over N600 per liter currently.
Airlines were forced to raise their airfares to a minimum of about N50,000 for a one-way flight, arguing that at current cost of materials, it is getting difficult to run their businesses at a profit.
Airlines operators have accused oil markets of hoarding the Jet A1 in order to raise the price, given the current high price of oil.
The disruption of flights on Monday came a few days after a number of airlines in Nigeria announced the formation of a strategic partnership among them. According to them, the partnership was aimed at fostering cooperation among them so they can help each take care of their passengers in times of emergencies.
It was not clear on Monday if that partnership enable any of them to offer help to other members of the group.
