Peter Obi Labour Party’s former presidential candidate has sharply criticized Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity of approximately 5,000 megawatts, describing it as severely insufficient and reflective of chronic leadership incompetence.
Writing on X on Saturday, Obi characterized Friday’s grid collapse as “a national disgrace that has become all too familiar.”
“The year 2025 began with a grid failure, followed by multiple others throughout the year. Now, barely into 2026, we have experienced our first collapse,” he noted.
Obi highlighted Nigeria’s troubling position among nations with the poorest electricity access between 2023 and 2025, with close to 100 million citizens living without reliable power supply.
Comparing Nigeria with regional counterparts, Obi emphasized the stark disparity in generation capacity relative to population size.
“Consider that South Africa, home to roughly 64 million people, produces more than 40,000 megawatts. Egypt, with approximately 115 million citizens, achieves similar output, while Algeria exceeds 50,000 megawatts. Yet Nigeria, despite having over 240 million people, manages only around 5,000 megawatts,” he explained.
The former presidential hopeful blamed the ongoing crisis on sustained leadership deficiencies, emphasizing that transforming the power sector demands capable and dedicated leadership. He called on Nigerian voters to prioritize competence and compassion when selecting leaders in the upcoming 2027 elections.
The grid failure that prompted Obi’s remarks occurred Friday around 1 pm, when power distribution to all electricity companies ceased entirely. Information from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) confirmed that nationwide generation dropped to zero megawatts, triggering complete blackouts.
According to NISO, an agency under the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the collapse resulted from the simultaneous failure of several 330kV transmission lines and the disconnection of multiple power generating stations from the grid.
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