Nationwide Strike: National Grid Shuts Down As Striking Labour Beat Up Workers Resisting Compliance

The nation has been thrown into total blackout as the striking labour unions have shutdown the national grid, resulting in general disruption in power transmission.

This is not without the striking Labour  beating up workers at control rooms of transmission substations who were resisting compliance.

The organized labour under the aegis of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) had on Friday, 31 May, 2024, declared indefinite nationwide strike effective Monday June 3, 2024.

The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), an affiliate of the NLC, had also in a statement endorsed by its Ag. General Secretary, Dominic Igwebike and President, Adebiyi Opeyemi Adeyeye, directed its members nationwide of the need to ensure total compliance.

“The withdrawal of services becomes effective Sunday 2nd June by 12.00 midnight. Please ensure total compliance”, the letter to all its branches emphasized.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), alerted the Nation on Monday morning that the Labour Union has deliberately shut down the national grid, resulting in black out  nationwide, explaining that the down occured at about 2.19am this morning, 3rd June 2024.

According to a statement by the TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, “At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero.

“Other transmission substations that were shut down, by the Labour Union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.

“On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency.

“The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.

“At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.”

She however, assured that TCN would continue to make effort to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide.