Abuja Faces Power Outage As Vandals Cut Transmission Cables

Suspected vandals have severed underground transmission cables that supply electricity to the city center, leaving the majority of Abuja, the capital of the country, in complete darkness.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, in a statement on Friday listed the affected parts of the city as Maitama, Wuse, Jabi, Lifecamp, Asokoro, Utako, and Mabushi.

These highbrow areas host the Federal Government’s Secretariat and other top offices of the Federal Government, including courts, security headquarters, and regulators of financial institutions.

The statement signed by TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, did not give any timeline on when power would be restored, but she disclosed that the company’s engineers were already working on fixing the problem.

She explained that “the vandalized 132kV underground cable transports bulk electricity to TCN’s 132kV Central Area transmission substation, which then supplies power through eight distribution feeders to AEDC for onward supply to its customers in Central Area and environs.

“The incident, which was carried out around the Menillum Park axis of Abuja, has affected over 60% of the power supply to Abuja as the vandals carted away 40 meters of 1x500mm² XLPE conductors on the two numbers 132kV transmission lines

“Consequently, areas experiencing power outages include Maitama, Wuse, Jabi, Lifecamp, Asokoro, Utako, and Mabushi.”

She added: “TCN engineers have already been mobilized to the site of the incident to repair the vandalized cables.

“We enjoin Nigerians to be vigilant in observing and reporting suspicious activities to security operatives; we must work together to protect our transmission equipment and installations. This is very crucial to the development of the nation’s power sector.”

Also, in a post on its social media handles, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, informed the residents of the outage.

“This is to inform residents around the Federal Secretariat, Wuse Zone 1-7, Central Mosque, Energy Commission, Transcorp Hotel, Eagle Square, Yar’Adua Centre, the entire Central Area, TCN HQ, CAC HQ, NYSC HQ, INEC, the entire Maitama, Kado Estate, parts of Jabi District, Area 7, 8 & 10 Garki, and its environs that the power outage being experienced is due to a fault on the 132 kV lines 1 & 2 from Katampe to AT5 Central Area Transmission Station.”