Minister apologises to Nigerians over power outages

The Minister of Power,  Mr Sale Mamman, has apologised to Nigerians over the current power outages experienced across many parts of the country. Mr Aaron Airtimas, Senior Special Adviser on Media and Communications to the Minister of Power, said this in a statement in Abuja on Thursday. Mamman said that he regretted this unfortunate situation and offered his sincere apology to all affected Nigerians on the inconveniences the power shortages were causing them. He assured Nigerians that the ministry through the appropriate agencies was working assiduously to rectify the technical and gas problems affecting the plants. Mamman said that the ministry of power was not unaware of the current power outages affecting some parts of the country.

”The problem is caused by the breakdown of some of the National Integrated Power Plants supplying electricity to the national grid. The plants are namely, Sapele, Afam, Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji and Ihovbor. The Jebba Power Plant was shut down for annual maintenance,” he said.

According to him, seven other integrated power plants, namely Geregu, Sepele, Omotosho, Gbarain, Omuku, Paras and Alaoji are experiencing gas constraints, while the Shiroro plant had water management problems.

The minister further promised that the national grid would be restored to its previous distribution peak of about 5,600MW of electricity achieved early this year. This he said was to relieve Nigerians from the current harsh climatic conditions and restore full economic activities. (NAN)