Minister of Power, Adelabu Adebayo Adelabu, has announced that consumers in the northern regions experiencing blackouts will not receive electricity bills for unused power.
Gatekeepers News reports that this decision comes after a series of power outages in the north-east, north-west, and north-central areas due to tripped transmission lines and vandalism.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) reported the initial outage on October 22, citing the tripping of 330-kilovolt Ugwaji-Apir double circuit transmission lines 1 and 2. Further investigation revealed that the Shiroro-Kaduna line was vandalized, reducing bulk electricity supply to major cities like Kaduna and Kano. A snapped transmission line in Benue state’s Igumale forest also contributed to the blackout.
President Bola Tinubu has directed TCN to expedite repairs and assigned National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu to ensure facility security.
Adelabu plans to meet with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) chairman and DisCos representatives to resolve the issue.
“I’m going to have a meeting with the chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and all the DisCos for those days during which they suffer blackouts,” the minister told State House correspondents on Monday after a meeting with the president on the matter.
“There should not be billing of any sort for any customer, be it household customers, office consumers, or industrial consumers; they would be immune from billings from those periods.
“The transmission company of Nigeria (TCN) has already set out to fix this line. What they asked for, which has been provided for them now, is the security cover of the national security adviser through the chief of army staff and air staff to enable them to restore the damaged lines. We are optimistic that very soon this will be restored.”
