Nigeria: Power Outages

There is a general pall of darkness across the nation. A major energy crisis, the worst in recent years, has broken out. And authorities of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have said, pointedly, that there is no immediate end in sight.

In explaining why there is epileptic, sometimes non-existent, power supply across the nation in recent weeks, the minister of Power and Steel, Liyel Imoke, attributed the crisis to a drop in power generation by about 1,000 MW. This, he said, was occasioned by the recent unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta region during which some militants blew up two gas pipelines in the area. The pipelines, the Alabiri gas pipeline and the Escravos gas pipeline, are conduits used to covey gas to power the PHCN thermal power stations.

AllAfrica