The Federal Government  in conjunction with some International donors has set aside US$1.6bn to ensure 24 hours power supply in Nigeria.

The Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria Alahji Usman Gur; at the Kumbosto Power substation in Kano revealed that the Federal Government of Nigeria has embarked on a project called the Transmission Rehabilitation Expansion Programme aimed at supplying the country with constant electricity.

“We are rehabilitating and expanding to 20,000 mega watt by 2022 across the country” said Usman.

The Federal Government has set aside a total of N32 billion as compensation for people whose property will be affected by the project, while the entire project will cost US$1.61bn.

“The total amount that we are going to pay for compensation across the country is about N32 billion. And the total project cost is 1.61 billion dollars. The project will receive support from various international donors. The compensation for right-of-way from Kumbotso sub-station to Rimi Zagara will cost about N3 billion. We have not completely validated it but the total cost for compensation across the country is being provided by the Federal Government, ” said Usman.

Averting the mistakes of the past

In a positive step to correct the mistakes in the past, Mr Usman stated that;

“The mistake that happened in the past is that we normally award contract for line without doing proper study. You know the study will establish who are the people under the right-of-way; and also those people who the lines will affect. So, there is a need to compile these group of persons and also pay them their compensation.”

Within this year, there have been nine(9) power grid collapses; and they are among at least 206 of such incidents that have been recorded since 2010.

A breakdown of the 206 grid collapses which often led to a power cut for a whole region or even the entire country shows that 109 of the incidents occurred from 2010 to 2013; while 97 others were recorded from 2014 to 2019.

The country went into total darkness 22 times and recorded 20 partial outages in 2010. The grid had 13 incidents of total collapse and six partial incidents in 2011; while by 2012, it rose to a 16 total collapses and eight (8) partial ones.

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