By Joycelyn Ellakeche Adah
Delayed energy reform, incessant large-scale vandalism, obsolete infrastructure, and years of chronic underfunding have exacerbated Nigeria’s power crisis,
Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) Managing Director, Sule Abdulaziz, has alerted.
According to him, the nation’s transmission backbone is facing a full-blown crisis as a result of massive vandalism, the worst in the company’s history.
Abdulaziz said the state-owned utility responsible for moving bulk electricity across the country’s fragile grid is now under significant threat.
“Between January and March 2025 alone, over 109 transmission towers were vandalized 62 of them in the Port Harcourt region plunging communities into darkness for days, even weeks.
“This is no longer just a technical challenge. It’s a national security emergency,” Abdulaziz told lawmakers at a Senate retreat in Akwa Ibom.
He said while the government pushes to expand generation capacity, the transmission network meant to carry that power is decaying.
“Substations still run on decades-old transformers, transmission lines sag under overload, and key upgrades are stalled due to funding gaps and bureaucratic red tape.
“Equipment meant for the grid often sits idle at the ports—trapped in paperwork limbo under a broken import clearance process.
“Legacy projects from 20 years ago are still incomplete. Many near-finished upgrades are stuck due to budget constraints. We are bleeding investments and losing time,” the TCN boss lamented.
Abdulaziz said more troubling is the lack of surveillance capability.
“TCN has no drones, no helicopters just manual patrols across thousands of kilometres of vulnerable lines. The company now leans heavily on local communities, the military, and piecemeal anti-vandalism campaigns.
“But without stronger laws, vandals will continue to act with impunity,” Abdulaziz said.
Abdulaziz warned that the potential collapse of TCN would be catastrophic for Nigeria’s aspirations for industrial growth and economic recovery.
He stressed that without urgent intervention in the form of legislation, funding, and security reform, the national grid might not withstand future pressures.
The Minister of Power, Dr. Adebayo Adelabu, also called for harsher penalties, pushing for life imprisonment for vandals and an urgent overhaul of power sector legislation.
He also revealed that TCN, shockingly, does not receive regular government funding.
“They survive on internally generated revenue, which has been dwindling. That can’t sustain grid expansion,” he said.
An industry expert, Mr. Sunday Oduntan of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) also painted a grim picture of a country generating barely 5,000 megawatts for over 200 million citizens—while South Africa, with less than one-third the population, produces ten times more.
“The Manbilla hydro project was awarded in 1982. It’s now 2025, and we don’t even have a completion timeline. Without fixing transmission, all talk of energy reform is hollow,” Oduntan said.
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