House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee investigating multi-billion-naira power sector reforms yesterday interrogated officials of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), exposing fresh gaps between Nigeria’s installed power capacity and the electricity actually delivered to homes and industries.
Appearing before the committee, chaired by Ibrahim Aliyu, the TCN Managing Director, Dr Sule Ahmad Abdulaziz, dismissed widely circulated claims that Nigeria currently generates 13,000 megawatts of electricity. He said that the figure reflected installed capacity, not what the national grid had ever produced.
‘The highest ever generated this year was 5,801MW. Nigeria has never produced 13,000MW on the national grid.
That number is installed capacity, not generated capacity’, Abdulaziz said.
He explained that until April 2024, the National Control Centre, responsible for daily generation and dispatch records, was under TCN’s direct supervision, providing the company with access to ‘accurate and verifiable’ data.
Responding to the scrutiny from committee member, Abubakar Fulata, who questioned why only about 6,000MW was typically wheeled despite supposedly higher available generation, Abdulaziz insisted TCN had never failed in transmission.
‘Our transmission capacity today is 8,600MW’, he stated. ‘At no time has power been generated that TCN could not evacuate. Anyone claiming otherwise should produce the data’.
On the company’s financial health, TCN’s Executive Director of Finance told lawmakers the company was weighed down by massive debts owed by electricity distribution companies (DisCos), saying: ‘N217 billion in electricity subsidy debt (Jan 2015–Dec 2020) taken over by the Federal Government; N450 billion owed by DisCos from Jan 2021 to date’.
The committee demanded documentary evidence backing the figures.
Clarifying controversies surrounding grid instability, a senior TCN system operations official stated that the company had recorded 11 grid collapses, contrary to the 22–23 often quoted.
Providing a breakdown of causes, he explained that six collapses were caused by generation issues, including gas shortages. Four were linked to vandalism of transmission towers, resulting in a sudden loss of load, and one was triggered by distribution network failures, often due to rainfall-induced feeder trips.
Meanwhile, despite scheduling voting on key proposals in the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution for 10 and 11 December, the House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to commence the debate on the constitution review for the third time.
This followed a closed-door meeting with the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, and the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji.
It was observed that the session, which lasted from 11:48 a.m. to 1:24 p.m. and was presided over by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, reportedly focused on concerns surrounding the delayed payment of indigenous contractors.
