Abuja, Jan. 14, 2025 – Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, says the federal government is targetting 6,000MW of power generation in the country by the end of 2025.
Adelabu made the promise when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power during a budget defence session on Monday.
He blamed the dilapidated infrastructure and vandalism of power systems for the incessant collapse of the national grid. in 2024.
The minister said that it was unfortunate that the current administration inherited old and dilapidated power infrastructure, adding that the government was barely struggling to manage the national grid.
The minister, however, said the country suffered eight collapses of the national grid last year, instead of the 12 as widely reported.
The minister said there was no guarantee to end the failure of national grid in 2025 as long as the current challenges persisted.
“I am happy to also inform you that out of the eight collapses of the national grid that we experienced during 2024, five were full collapses, while three were actually partial collapses.
“Out of the five, three were from generation, while two were from vandalism issues, and I don’t want to emphasise this vandalism issue because we are all aware of what happened.”
The minister blamed insecurity and resistance by bandits for failure of the government to fix the Shiroro-Mando-Kaduna 330 kV line, one of the main power supply lines to northern part of the country.
He said the North now relied on the Uwaji-Apir-Makurdi 330 kV line which, he said, was already burdened by similar threats of vandalism.
The minister said the cost of repairs of the vandalized lines were far beyond the budget of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) which had already sourced about N9 billion unbudgeted funds to make some repairs.
He alleged that the criminals used dynamite and other deadly explosives to destroy as many as nine towers on the line.
“We had to work with our soldiers and other agencies. The first time we went there, it was like a civil war situation. “They (bandits) had to be attacked from the air,” he said.
The minister said government, had however, been able to improve power generation in the country 4,100 megawatts in 2023 to 5,528mw in 2024, in spite of the challenges.
“I can tell you authoritatively that by the end of 2024, we had a peak generation of 5,528 MW of power from 4,100 MW of plants.
“And the reason for this is not far-fetched. We know that we added a new hydroelectric power dam, Zungeru, of 700 MW, and also there was a tremendous increase in the generation by other existing power generating companies, mainly hydro and thermal plants.”
He also said while the initial target was 6,000 MW, unforeseen challenges such as grid disturbances toward the end of the year prevented the country from achieving it.
“We have been trying very hard to ensure that we manage the grid that was inherited.
“Unfortunately, it is still very old. It is dilapidated. And we are just managing it until we are able to fix it permanently.
“This is the focus of the Presidential Power Initiative, to ensure that the entire grid is revamped so that we won’t be having all this vandalism,” he said.
