• It’s time for alternative power sources, says Kwankwaso

Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has attributed the frequent collapse of the national electricity grid to old and dilapidated power infrastructure.

However, former Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has stressed the need to explore alternative power sources.

After his meeting with President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Adelabu also revealed the challenges facing the power sector.

Reacting to complaints about incessant grid collapse, while fielding questions from newsmen, the minister said the national grid infrastructure was constructed over 50 years ago.

He said the transmission lines dotting the North were weak, the towers falling apart and the sub-stations unable to aid power distribution to households.

According to him, these factors conspired to deny most citizens electricity, yet they are compelled to pay high bills.

“We have a national grid of over 50 years old, whose transmission lines are weak, the towers falling and the substations, the transformers, are old. The transformer that exploded in Jeba was 47 years old. We have been trying to revamp this to change them, but they cannot all be changed overnight,” Adelabu lamented.

The national grid collapsed no fewer than seven times between January and October 2024, a development that caused widespread condemnation and calls for urgent action.

Adelabu, who said he confided in the President about constraints of insecurity in restoring power to the North, disclosed that he also secured the President’s approval to deploy security personnel to guard workers tasked with the repair of some of the failed power infrastructure.

Kwankwaso, in reaction to the power outage in northern Nigeria, noted that the outage, which lasted eight days, subjected businesses to losses and crippled essential services.

In a statement, yesterday, the former governor of Kano State lamented that that many parts of Northern Nigeria were in darkness today due to vandalism on the 330kV Shiroro-Kaduna power line that supplies Kano and Kaduna, and another that supplies Bauchi, Gombe and other parts of the North East.

He said: “This situation has been further compounded by the high cost of petrol and diesel in Nigeria, which has further plunged homes into darkness and forced factories to go under.

“It is about time we looked into alternative power sources to address our energy needs and we need to exploit the abundant resources available to this country.”

Kwankwaso encouraged state governments and private investors to invest in alternative electricity sources.