Residents in Maiduguri, Borno State, are experiencing a complete blackout after vandals used explosives to destroy two newly constructed power towers on Tuesday night.
This act of vandalism has resulted in another power outage, reminiscent of the one in December 2023.
Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager of Public Affairs at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), announced this in a press release on Wednesday.
According to TCN, the two towers were part of a recent project to replace previously damaged infrastructure, where three towers had also been destroyed by explosives.
“Two of our towers, T193 and T194, along the Damaturu-Maiduguri 330kV Single Circuit Transmission Line, have been destroyed by vandals again,” TCN stated.
The incident occurred at around 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday, coinciding with the tripping of the 150MVA power transformer at Molai Substation and the 330kV transmission line supplying power from Damaturu Transmission Substation to Maiduguri, TCN reported.
Despite TCN engineers’ efforts to restore the Molai-Damaturu power line, repeated tripping has hindered the bulk transmission of electricity.
During a patrol on Wednesday, TCN engineers and security personnel discovered that towers T193 and T194 had been deliberately brought down using explosives, leaving debris at the site.
Mbah emphasized that the destruction has significantly impacted electricity supply to Maiduguri and the surrounding areas.
Previously, towers T193, T194, and T195 were destroyed on December 28, 2023, with similar improvised explosive devices. The recently attacked towers had been reconstructed after the earlier incident.
“TCN is currently assessing the situation to determine the best approach for temporarily restoring power supply while a contractor is mobilized to rebuild the two transmission towers,” the company stated.
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