Prepare for blackout for 30 days

Ayodele Adesanmi, Abuja - 29.02.2008

RESIDENTS of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Lagos states will have to do without electricity from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) for 30 days due to the vandalism of electricity transmission lines supplying power to the states.

The Minister of State for Power, Mrs. Balaraba Ibrahim, who said this on Thursday in Abuja, disclosed that unknown vandals had on Sunday, February 17, cut down with a saw, 330kv Tower No. 395 off Oko Baba near Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Also on February 27 at 1.02 a.m., the minister said vandals fell another 330kv Tower on Ikeja West –Aiyede Transmission Line. This is Tower No 507 close to Temperance Farms Ota.

The minister, who briefed newsmen on the spate of vandalism of electricity transmission lines in the area, said the effect of these would be blackouts in the six states.

The blackout, according to her, would last one month because “reconstruction could take about one month to complete.”

The minister, while emphasising the resolve of the government to trace the vandals, said that anyone that could come up with useful information leading to the arrest of the particular vandals would be rewarded with N1 million.

To reconstruct the fallen tower and beefing up the security, she said that over N20 million would be needed which would exclude loss of revenue to the PHCN, while the line would be out of service.

On the mode of operations of the vandals, the minister explained that nothing was removed from the tower or the adjoining line sections which, according to her, was a clear act of sabotage and not ordinary vandalism.

According to her, “acts of vandalism and sabotage are retrogressive in our efforts at nation building.

Million of naira that would have been used in expanding the grid network is now being used to reconstruct vandalised tower lines.

“They also bring unquantifiable and unimaginable inconveniencies and socio-economic losses to the affected people,” she said.

According to her, electric grid system of any nation was its backbone for socio-economic development, adding that when such act was perpetrated, it called for a national rethink and prompt collective action to speedily reverse the trend.