Regardless of the efforts of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to attain nationwide electrification and increase financial growth, the nefarious actions of vandals are sabotaging progress, plunging the plenty into darkness, studies DARE OLAWIN
The deliberate destruction of energy infrastructure, together with transmission traces, substations, and distribution tools, is hindering the nation’s skill to offer dependable electrical energy to its residents and undermining the federal government’s initiatives to drive progress and prosperity. Because the authorities attempt to ‘gentle up’ Nigeria, the scourge of vandalism poses a big menace to the realisation of this imaginative and prescient.
The Federal Authorities stated it had succeeded in elevating energy era to 5GW from 4GW. Nonetheless, vandals didn’t enable Nigerians to take pleasure in a steady energy provide.
In latest occasions, it seems the vandals now function with renewed vigour, defying all safety preparations to tug down electrical energy installations.
For a very long time, instances of cable theft, transformer vandalism and related crimes had been rife in numerous communities. This was once the main pattern of vandalism within the Nigerian electrical energy provide trade. Sadly, this menace has aggravated from cable theft to assaults on energy transmission towers.
The Transmission Firm of Nigeria has been lamenting over this case however the vandals appear to be getting extra ‘energised’ by the day.
Prior to now few weeks, no fewer than 20 towers have been pulled down by vandals, whose goals are but to be unknown. Whereas many believed that these vandals had been terrorists, some stated they had been people whose intention was primarily to steal the irons and cable to promote the identical as scrap. Regardless of the intentions are, the unhappy actuality stays that these vandals have continued to attract again the efforts of the federal government to ramp up energy provide within the nation.
In a latest report, the TCN expressed issues over the alarming rise in vandalism of transmission installations throughout the nation. The TCN spokesperson, Ndidi Mbah, stated the rising menace urgently required the cooperation of all residents, notably these in host communities, the place these installations had been situated.
Although Mbah stated the TCN had constantly engaged safety operatives, host communities, and native vigilante teams in response to the difficulty, it seems the efforts of the safety brokers are usually not sufficient to curb this act.
Between July 1 and August 11, TCN installations had been stated to have skilled quite a few vandalism and widespread assaults within the six weeks, affecting each transmission area of the TCN.
On August 7, safety operatives reportedly apprehended vandals in a blue pick-up van loaded with sacks containing tower members and cables stolen from transmission towers alongside the Damboa/Maiduguri 132KV transmission line. The vandals had been arrested by the police from the Damboa Police Station in Borno State.
The TCN spokesperson, Mbah, maintained that the tower members and cables had been stolen from the towers alongside the Damboa/Maiduguri 132kV transmission line, which was nonetheless underneath reconstruction on account of a earlier vandalism assault on the identical line. This is the reason some have opined that the vandals may be deliberate in preserving the folks of this space in darkness.
It was additionally gathered that on August 11, some individuals attacked towers T377, T378, and T379 alongside the Gombe-Damaturu 330kV transmission line, which is present process speedy and pressing restore following one other earlier vandalism incident involving improvised explosive gadgets on towers T193 and T194. Using IEDs may be a sign that this act was carried out by a terrorist group, although no group has claimed accountability.
Two of the perpetrators of the assaults on towers T377, T378, and T379 alongside the Gombe-Damaturu 330kV transmission line had been killed by hunters on the Damaturu finish of the road.
Additionally, on August 3 and 5, vandals attacked towers alongside two transmission line routes underneath the Enugu Area of TCN. The primary assault focused tower T9 on the Apir-Aliede 330kV transmission line, and the second focused tower T12 on the Apir-Otukpo-Yandev 123kV transmission line, each passing by Ikpayango Village.
In response to the primary incident, the native vigilante group was in a position to stop the vandals from stealing the skywire after it had been introduced down.
“Moreover, on August 5, 2024, vandals managed to chop off and steal the yellow part conductor from towers T11 to T12 alongside the Apir-Otukpo-Yandev line, which triggered a tripping of the 150MVA energy transformer on the Apir Transmission Substation. TCN engineers responded swiftly by eradicating the remaining conductors on tower T11, permitting the continued provide of bulk electrical energy to Yandev, Otukpo, and Takum by the 132kV New Haven-Otukpo transmission line,” the TCN stated in a press release.
Mbah added that the TCN staff had efficiently sectionalised the affected towers to facilitate repairs whereas stabilising each ends of the sectionalised community that provides energy to Otukpo, Yandev, and Takum from the New Haven Substation. She maintained that the 150MVA transformer had been examined and restored.
Equally, a yet-to-be-identified group of people on July 24 struck within the Osogbo Area, vandalising Tower T328 alongside the 330kV Osogbo-Ganmo line within the Oba-Oke space of Osogbo, Osun State. This incident triggered extreme structural injury to the tower, leaving it twisted and bent, with insulators at a harmful angle of 65° to 70°. The broken and bent tower T328 additionally affected towers T327 and T329 on both facet.
Regardless of the precarious situation of T328, it was stated that the cables remained supported by the bent towers, stopping energy outages. The Osogbo Area of TCN needed to perform emergency restore works on the affected towers to stop their collapse. Nonetheless, the tower continues to be awaiting the everlasting reconstruction that may gulp some huge cash that would have been used for one thing else.
“TCN has reported these incidents to safety operatives, together with the navy, the police, the Division of State Companies, and the Nigeria Safety and Civil Defence Corps. A go to was additionally made to the Oba of Oba-Oke to emphasize the necessity for group collaboration in defending installations inside his area. Moreover, extra native vigilantes have been employed to observe the amenities,” Mbah defined.
Within the Benin Area of TCN, on July 19, Tower T449 at Oluku group alongside the Ihovbor/Benin 330kV transmission line was reportedly vandalised, with the three legs and supporting members reduce off.
On July 25, Tower T72 alongside the Benin/Egbin 330kV transmission line, additionally in Oluku Group, Benin, was vandalised, with the 4 legs of the tower (B6N) additionally reduce off. TCN’s engineers strengthened the tower legs to stop collapse.
It was added that within the Port Harcourt Area of TCN, vandals attacked Towers T98 and T99 alongside the Ahoada-Yenagoa 132kV line on July 29, inflicting them to break down within the Igbogene Group of Bayelsa State. On August 3, Tower T97 alongside the identical line route additionally collapsed on account of instability from the adjoining collapsed towers, compounded by storm and wind results, it was said.
Not too long ago, transmission traces within the North East, underneath the Bauchi Area of TCN—stretching from the Jos 330kV Transmission Substation to Bauchi, by Gombe, Damaturu, and as much as Maiduguri—have suffered a number of vandalism assaults at numerous factors. Moreover, a number of different much less extreme acts of vandalism have additionally occurred.
The Federal Authorities has reiterated the necessity for collective motion towards vandals of energy installations of any type, because the TCN stated it stays dedicated to working with communities, safety companies and vigilantes to safeguard energy installations.
The TCN appealed for the assist of all Nigerians to curb the assaults on electrical energy installations. It was noticed that only some arrests had been normally made in reference to vandalism. Many stated this could possibly be as a result of the act is normally carried out at night time.
Additionally, TCN towers are largely put in within the bushes and locations inaccessible to safety brokers, particularly on account of an absence of enabling tools.
Nonetheless, one other faculty of thought believed that the safety brokers weren’t doing sufficient to analyze and arrest the culprits.
Throughout a go to to the TCN headquarters not too long ago, the TCN Managing Director/Chief Govt Officer, Sule Abdulaziz, appealed to the Chairman of the Home Committee on Energy, Victor Nwokolo and his members to assist efforts towards vandalism, highlighting that a number of TCN towers have been vandalized since June, regardless of the corporate’s collaboration with safety companies to guard its transmission infrastructure.
The remark from the TCN boss is a sign that the vandals have overwhelmed the safety brokers.
Alluding to this, Nwokolo questioned what number of safety brokers could be deployed to look at over the towers.
“What number of policemen are you going to draft to look at on energy traces? It’s not every little thing that the federal government can do for us. To the vandals, they need to give consideration to state-owned infrastructure. It’s solely in Nigeria that somebody will see a tower and nonetheless go and vandalise it.
“Each Nigerian, excessive and low, should rise as much as the event and offer protection to the infrastructure. We must always not sit, fold our arms and watch somebody reduce off the cables with out confronting the guy and count on to have electrical energy,” the committee chairman said, regretting that vandalism stays a serious problem within the sector and it has set the ability sector again in an enormous manner.
Not too long ago, the TCN stated it might require roughly N1.7tn to finish about 129 ongoing electrical energy initiatives nationwide whereas it wants about N600bn to settle right-of-way claims. Sadly, even when these initiatives are accomplished, the vandals are on the prowl to throw the cash down the drain.
Minister blames cartel
To the Minister of Energy, Adebayo Adelabu, the people behind these assaults on energy property are cartels who didn’t need the ability sector to succeed. This group of individuals, he alleged, are importers of energy mills. Adelabu questioned how bizarre individuals may afford IEDs to dismantle towers.
The minister said that the saboteurs reduce off transmission traces, and demolished transmission towers, substations and transformers.
“For about two or three weeks, the whole North East was in darkness, simply because they went to convey down all of the transmission energy traces. What can we do? And we should use our taxpayers’ cash to even change all these,” he nervous.
Blaming the so-called cabals and cartels for the assaults on energy infrastructure, he said, “If you happen to make the ability sector work on this nation, some folks will consider that you’re snatching their day by day bread from them. Now we have confronted these limitations, we’ve confronted these challenges and sabotage within the final 12 months. Individuals are not looking for the ability sector to succeed as a result of it’s a supply of livelihood for all of them.
“The vast majority of the ability generator firms all around the world manufacture for Nigeria; 80 to 70 per cent of their gross sales are from the Nigerian market due to our sheer inhabitants and the non-effectiveness of our energy sector.
“Let me let you know, I didn’t wish to say this on air, however I believe I’ll point out it. I acquired menace calls a number of occasions. I’m the forty ninth energy minister on this nation in my 60 years of Nigerian existence. The previous administration additionally had good intentions, however most likely they had been bullied. They had been intimidated,” Adelabu narrated.
He opined that his predecessors had been compelled to return to their cocoons.
“Do you suppose it takes simply an bizarre individual to go and blow up an influence transmission substation with dynamite and complicated tools? Do you suppose it takes an bizarre individual to go and pull down a transmission energy line, a 330kV excessive voltage line, or a 132kV excessive voltage line? It’s an organised crime. So it’s a cabal, it’s a cartel,” he pressured.
Displaying resistance and resilience, Adelabu stated he wouldn’t be intimidated.
“However let me let you know, we’re all Nigerians. We is not going to run away from ourselves. We are going to confront ourselves,” the minister declared.
In conclusion, the deliberate destruction of energy infrastructure by vandals is a big menace to Nigeria’s efforts to attain nationwide electrification and financial growth. Regardless of the federal government’s efforts to improve outdated infrastructure and enhance energy era, the actions of those vandals proceed to hinder progress, plunging communities into darkness and undermining the nation’s progress.
The TCN has reported quite a few incidents of vandalism, and the ability minister has blamed cartels and saboteurs for the assaults. The federal government, safety companies, and residents must work collectively to guard energy installations and forestall these prison actions. The combat towards vandalism requires collective motion, and solely by cooperation and willpower can Nigeria overcome this problem and obtain a steady energy community.