Blackout as ‘labour union shuts down national grid’

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says the “labour union has shut down” the national grid, resulting in a blackout nationwide.

The national grid shut down occured at about 2.19 am on 3rd June 2024.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) kicked off their indefinite nationwide strike today, over the federal government’s refusal to increase the minimum wage from N60,000.

The TCN, in a statement on Monday, signed by Ndidi Mbah, it’s general manager, said workers at the Benin Transmission Operator were sent from the control room and beaten by the protesters.

“At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero,” the statement reads.

“Other transmission substations that were shut down, by the Labour Union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations.

“Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.

“On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency.”

“The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.”

The TCN, however, said grid recovery commenced at about 3:23 am, using the Shiroro substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe transmission substation.

“The situation is such that the labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide,” the firm said.

The transmission company said it would continue to make effort to recover and stabilise the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide.