Vandals steal over N20b substation equipment in Imo community – TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has raised the alarm over the activities of vandals and illegal miners at its transmission towers, saying that the activities are threatening the nation’s national electricity grid stability.

It stated that if nothing was done to checkmate the nefarious activities, the national electricity grid would remain vulnerable to frequent collapses due to the imminent fall of the transmission towers and lines resulting from the vandalisation and illegal mining of sand and laterite along the right of ways.

The TCN General Manager (Transmission) in charge of the Enugu region, Dr. Thomas Inugonum, raised the alarm when he took newsmen to New Centenary City estate, Enugu where miners had dug out the base of some transmission towers, leaving it at the mercy of wind or thunderstorm.

The TCN GM expressed disappointment that people had excavated and even removed the stone pitching around the right of way on the base of the transmission towers.

He expressed worry that a similar situation where the entire northern region was plunged into darkness for weeks, might be repeated if the perpetrators of the activities were not stopped immediately.

“If you look, it speaks for itself. We’re along the right of way of a very important transmission line, where Enugu region receives power from Ikot Ekpene, Port Harcourt region. These two lines you see here now are the four lines from Ugwuaji to Ikot Ekpene,” he said.

“On the other left, we have New Haven-Onitsha power line. You find out that the corridor or right of way is already threatened by this land they’re mining. You can see the way they’re excavating sand everywhere up till the base of our towers. All of them are like this. So, it is a threat to the particular line that even takes power to the North.

“In the other one we showed you, people excavated and even removed the stone pitching around the right of way on the base of the tower.

“This is really disheartening. In fact, I’m really disappointed and disturbed. I don’t know how we’re going to continue with this type of problem.

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“You can see the illegal miners running away the moment they sighted us. So, they know what they’re doing. That’s why we’re still calling on the state government to assist us.

“Let the civil defense people do their work. The infrastructure has been handed over to them for safeguards. They should come here to patrol the line because if it happens now, there would be no light in the entire North.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do now because the excavation is too much. The consequence of this is with time whenever there’s a heavy wind or thunderstorm, it strikes these towers and the earthen will no longer hold the towers, thereby forcing them to collapse. If it does that, there will be an outage in that region.”

Meanwhile, a power substation constructed at Okigwe to improve electricity around Okigwe and Orlu senatorial zones of Imo State has been ripped open by vandals, who have stolen everything inside it and left the carcass.

The TCN GMT Enugu region, Dr. Inugonum, who disclosed this to newsmen at a press conference, said the over N20 billion substation, which was awaiting energization after it was 90 percent completed, was targeted by vandals, thus frustrating the power improvement initiative of TCN in the area.

Inugonum disclosed that it was because of this that the TCN had hastened to energise all the completed power substations in the Enugu region

“At Ninth Mile, we had to energise it by all means to avoid a repeat of what happened at Okigwe. In Okigwe, we had a fully completed power substation, awaiting energization. But it was ripped open by vandals. Everything was taken,” he said.

“As we speak now, you can’t get any useful thing from that substation. Everything has been stolen. And that’s a station that was almost 90 percent completed.

“At that time, the government spent over N2.8 billion to build it up to that level. Now, you can’t build that station with anything less than N20 billion. That’s to show you why I don’t want Ninth Mile Enugu and Amasiri in Ebonyi substations to face similar problems of vandalisation.”