Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has disclosed that a nationwide blackout in Nigeria occurred due to a fire outbreak. The incident led to a complete collapse of the country’s electricity grid on Thursday.
The blackout affected the entire nation, with the electricity grid collapsing around 12:40 a.m., resulting in a significant loss of power supply to distributors across the country.
In a Facebook post made on Thursday, Minister Adelabu provided details about the incident, explaining that a fire outbreak occurred at the Kainji/Jebba facility located in the North-central region, causing the widespread blackout.
According to the Minister’s statement, the fire outbreak on the Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J), specifically on the blue phase CVT and blue phase line isolator, was accompanied by an explosion sound. This event triggered a sharp drop in the frequency of the electricity grid from 50.29Hz to 49.67Hz at 00:35:06Hrs, resulting in a loss of 356.63MW of generation capacity at Jebba.
As a consequence of the incident, Kainji’s power generation began to decline rapidly, from 451.45MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero. At 00:41Hrs, the frequency dropped further to 48.41Hz, leading to the ultimate collapse of the grid.
Minister Adelabu assured the public that authorities were actively addressing the situation, and the fire had been fully contained. More than half of the connections were already restored, and efforts were underway to fully restore power supply.
He expressed his gratitude to those who responded to the incident and to the engineering team for their prompt response and ongoing efforts. The Minister also emphasized that the delay in providing updates was deliberate to prevent panic and to be able to communicate progress in addressing the situation, while also preventing economic and security threats from taking advantage of the situation.