A partial collapse of Nigeria’s national electricity grid has left homes and businesses across the South-East without power, disrupting supply to all customers served by the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC).
The company said the system failure occurred at about 11:54 a.m. on Thursday, February 19, resulting in a complete loss of electricity across its network.
In a statement signed by its group head of corporate communications, Emeka Ezeh, EEDC said all its subsidiary distribution companies — MainPower, TransPower, FirstPower, NewEra and EastLand — were affected. These firms supply electricity across the five South-East states of Enugu, Abia, Ebonyi, Anambra and Imo.
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Ezeh said the cause of the grid disturbance had not been determined, adding that the company was awaiting further updates from the National Control Centre, which manages power transmission across the country.
“The cause of the collapse is yet to be ascertained, but we are on standby, awaiting restoration of supply,” he said, apologising to customers for the disruption.
The outage follows a period of relatively stable generation. Earlier on Thursday, the national grid data showed electricity output had reached 3,861 megawatts. However, faults within the transmission network can interrupt supply regardless of generation levels, preventing distribution companies from delivering power to end users.
The blackout is expected to disrupt commercial activity across major cities in the region, including Onitsha, Aba and Enugu, where businesses rely heavily on grid electricity to operate.
