Nigeria’s national power grid collapsed on Friday, marking its first failure of 2026, just weeks after a similar incident on 29 December 2025 that triggered widespread blackouts across the country.
Electricity generation plunged sharply from over 4,500 megawatts to about 24 megawatts by 1:30 pm, according to available data. All 23 power generation plants connected to the grid reportedly lost output during the incident, resulting in zero power allocation to the country’s 11 electricity distribution companies.
Grid collapses in Nigeria have often been linked to technical faults, poor maintenance of transmission infrastructure and fluctuations in generation capacity.
The exact cause of Friday’s collapse was not immediately clear, and officials of the Transmission Company of Nigeria had yet to issue a detailed statement at the time of filing this report.
