Nigeria was thrown into widespread darkness on Friday after the national electricity grid collapsed, marking the first such incident recorded in 2026.
The system failure occurred at about 1pm, when load allocation to all electricity distribution companies (DisCos) dropped to zero.
Data from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) showed that power generation fell to zero megawatts (MW), triggering a total shutdown of electricity supply nationwide.
A review of the national distribution load profile at the time confirmed that all DisCos — including Abuja, Eko, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Yola — recorded zero load, underscoring the nationwide scope of the outage.
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The collapse came shortly after grid operators reported strong electricity demand across major urban centres.
Before the failure, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company was receiving about 639MW, while Ikeja Electric drew roughly 630MW, reflecting what officials described as robust demand in key cities.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, had yet to disclose the cause of the collapse as of the time of filing this report.
While restoration efforts were said to be ongoing, the timeline for full recovery remained unclear. Efforts to obtain immediate comments from TCN officials were unsuccessful.
