By Cross Udo Abuja
The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, yesterday said that many factors were responsible for the blackout witnessed in many parts of the country.

But the minister also assured that the problem has been taken care of and power restored.

Abubakar, who briefed State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the current power situation in the country was caused by vandalism of pipelines and shortage of gas.

He said that he summoned a meeting of all relevant stakeholders on Tuesday to ensure that the problem was solved with immediate effect.

He further stated that efforts were being made to address the situation, adding that Nigeria had the capacity of 8,000 megawatts on the grid, imbedded and captive.

Abubakar, who was flanked by the Minister of State for Power, Prince Jeddy Agba said, “The issue we’re currently facing now, just like I told you, when I came for the press briefing about two weeks ago was not actually only as a result of the drop in the level of water. Most of you captured only that part.

“That is far from it. It’s not much from that angle. The more reason we are facing this situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go to maintenance.

“It is a scheduled maintenance, and it is supposed to be scheduled outage, but we have not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalization of pipelines which the NNPC has addressed as you can see evidently everywhere, aviation fuel, and queue for petrol in the filling stations.

“It is a combination of many factors. That compounded the problem we are having on the grid.

“The generators cannot supply because of lack of gas.

Some of you are aware, just two days ago, I summoned an emergency meeting which is unprecedented. For the first time, I brought in all the sector players, from NNPC, AGIP, Shell, the regulator, NERC, the umpire, EMBED, some of the GENCOs like Niger Delta Power Company, and TCN, transporter, the ministry, and the Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure.

“We came together and used the whole day trying to proffer solutions. I challenged all of them. I said this is like a war situation.

“We need to find solutions. We need to come out with answers. We need quick and emergency solutions. As you rightly put it, the power on the grid has dropped due to those things that affect its lack of gas and maintenance that some of the generators are undergoing.

“So, that triggers it. You know technology, that drop in the supply that goes down on the grid, it triggers some response, some started to trip down and that also causes the whole system to go down.

“We had it day before yesterday, we recovered it. We had it again, we covered it. So, we have covered it now. We are on top of it. The grid is back. We are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid through that meeting that I told you. So, everybody is now contributing to that meeting.

“Those things that you have mentioned about bickering, this one saying this, this one saying that is no longer the case because I have told them that we are one. Nobody should blame anybody. Because if you go on the blame game, then how do you solve the problem?

“So, it was part of the things the meeting was able to address the day before yesterday. So, we have started seeing the outcome of the meeting.

“As I leave here today, I will get more information on what I have to go and do. We have set up small committees, two, three committees and all gearing towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid. So, basically, it is around gas. You see you have to have gas contracts between the GENCOs and the gas suppliers, some are firm contracts, some are not.

“So, all these cases, we are looking into them. And we have proffered some solutions, which may take some few days to mature. So, as I said, if I go out now, I will get some information on where we are. So, this is the situation. On what I said last time, we still stand on that.

“We have a capacity of 8000 megawatts when I was explaining the time I came here. We have the one on the grid, we have the embedded and we have the captive. So, if you combine all of them, we have that.

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“So, what is happening now is as a result of all these problems that we’re encountering, and we’re on top of it. Very soon, we will come out of it.

“I want you to understand me very well when I speak. I’m not saying that I am insisting on anything…. I told you, this project that we have got approval is to expand the grid.
“The grid is not that strong. It carries so much load. We have to maintain it and loads it gradually through all this expansion. Let me tell you and give you a typical example, you have a 330 kv line, this is a very high voltage load, and you need to take it. Distributor cannot connect from 330 to the community.

Then, you have to put a massive substation and drop the 330 to 132 and radiate. This is the expansion. And if you radiate 132 and you continue to extend 132 by the time you extend it furthermore, you will get light like torch light. So, if it goes further, you need to take 330 up there, then you radiate. So, this is the kind of expansion we are doing.