Nigeria’s fragile power sector suffered another major setback on Wednesday as the national electricity grid collapsed, leaving most parts of the country in blackout.

The grid, known for frequent collapse crashed from 4,500 megawatts to 120MW.
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) confirmed the outage in a public notice, citing a total loss of supply from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) at 11:23 a.m.

“Please be informed that the power outage currently being experienced is due to a loss of supply from the national grid… affecting electricity supply across our franchise areas,” AEDC stated.

The utility assured customers that efforts were underway with relevant stakeholders to restore supply once the grid stabilises.

Real-time data from the National System Operator (NSO) seen at 1:10 p.m. showed that only 120 megawatts (MW) were available on the grid — a fraction of Nigeria’s installed capacity of over 12,000 MW and far below the 4,000–5,000 MW typically distributed on a normal day.

The limited power was shared among just four distribution companies (DisCos). Ibadan Disco currently has about 50 MW, followed by Enugu Disco with 40 MW. Abuja Disco, at the time of writing this report has 20 MW, while Benin Disco has 10 MW.

The remaining seven DisCos, including Ikeja, Eko, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Port Harcourt and Yola, were left with zero allocation, meaning no power supply to their franchise areas.

This latest system collapse adds to a long list of grid failures that have plagued Africa’s largest economy.