Despite significant investments to stabilize Nigeria’s power sector, the national grid has collapsed 105 times over the past decade, according to findings reported by The PUNCH. Both the Bola Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari administrations have faced recurring grid failures, despite injecting billions of naira into the sector and securing loans worth $4.36 billion from the World Bank.
During Buhari’s administration (2015-2023), the grid collapsed 93 times. Despite initial improvements, grid failures persisted, with 12 collapses recorded in Tinubu’s first 16 months in office. The most recent collapse, the third in one week, occurred on Saturday, 2024, reflecting ongoing instability.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) attributes these failures to deviations from the grid’s stability parameters. Imbalances between electricity supply and demand often lead to system collapses, leaving large parts of the country in darkness and disrupting economic activities.