Residents in Maiduguri, Borno State, are now in total darkness after vandals on Tuesday night, once again, used explosive devices to destroy two towers newly built to replace those destroyed back in December 2023.

The general manager, public affairs, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Ndidi Mbah, disclosed this in a press release on Wednesday.

According to the TCN in the statement, the two vandalised towers were among the three recently installed to replace the three vandalised with similar explosive devices.

The TCN said, “Two of its towers, T193 and T194, along the Damaturu -Maiduguri  330kV Single Circuit Transmission Line have again been destroyed by vandals.

“The incident, TCN believes, happened at about 10:15 p.m. yesterday night when the 150MVA power transformer at Molai Substation tripped at the same time as the 330kV transmission line supplying bulk power to Maiduguri from Damaturu Transmission Substation,” it stated.

The company said that the TCN engineers’ efforts to close the Mulai—Damaturu line after the line tripped repeatedly failed to enable bulk transmission of electricity.

The TCN, however, revealed that its line engineers, along with security operatives, on Wednesday, “patrolled the line and discovered that towers 193 and 194 along the 330kV transmission line were brought down using an explosive device, whose fragments are scattered at the site of the incident.”

Mr Mbah stated that the vandalisation of both towers has affected Maiduguri and its environs.

The company recalled that “towers T193, T194 and T195, were destroyed on 28th December 2023 using similar improvised Explosives IEDs. Two out of the towers in question are the towers affected by yesterday’s vandalism attack, which were rebuilt after that incident.”

“TCN is currently assessing the situation with the view to deciding on the best approach to ensuring the temporary restoration of the power supply while a contractor is mobilised to rebuild the two transmission towers,” it said.

Vowing to do everything possible, with the assistance of security operatives, to protect transmission towers, the TCN urged the government and Nigerians to help fight against the destruction of national assets.