Another entry in the long log of Naija blackouts
Small businesses in a powerless country are paying for a failed Bretton Woods experiment.
Justina Asishana in Minna
Bolaji Azeez runs a photocopy and printing business in Minna, Niger State. When the national electricity grid collapsed on Tuesday, he had to reprice a bulk order to cover the cost of generator fuel, irritating his client.
“He paid,” Azeez says. “But not without grumbling.”
It was Nigeria’s second national grid collapse in a week. There have been at least five countrywide power outages in the past 12 months. The grid keeps failing because an old, under‑capitalised transmission system is being run with thin generation margins, a fragile gas supply, and weak commercial incentives, so even routine disturbances cascade into countrywide collapses.
The most recent incident affected all major distribution companies in the country’s 36 states, with authorities blaming a “voltage disturbance”.
A recent survey found that the average Nigerian company experienced more than 300 outages a year. The World Bank says Nigeria loses 5% to 7% of GDP a year to its lack of reliable power. At $25‑billion, this is one of the largest structural drags to its economy.
The utilities that generate and transmit electricity in Nigeria were privatised over the past decade. That “did not bring about the outcomes expected”, admits the World Bank, whose economists often recommended privatisation drives.
Homes and businesses are paying the price of the failed experiment as they resort to expensive generator fuel. Nigeria has so many diesel generators it is estimated they can generate eight times more electricity than is available on the national grid