The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says NLC and TUC have shut down the national power grid, causing a nationwide blackout on Monday.

TCN announced the nationwide blackout in a statement on Monday.

The labour unions declared an indefinite nationwide strike over the weekend.

“The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby informs the general public that the Labour Union has shut down the national grid, resulting in a blackout nationwide,” stated the transmission company. “The national grid shutdown occurred at about 2:19 a.m. this morning, 3rd June 2024.”

TCN explained that the Benin transmission operator, under the TCN Independent System Operations unit, reported the incident at about 1:15 a.m.

“All operators were driven away from the control room, and staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Centre was brought to zero,” the TCN statement added.

She stated that the labour unions also shut down the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo transmission substations.

“Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union. On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency,” TCN said.

It stressed that the “sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19 a.m.”

However, TCN said that at about 3:23 a.m. it “commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation.”

Noting that the labour union’s activities are still obstructing grid recovery nationwide, TCN promised it “will continue to make efforts to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide.”