Nigeria's fragile power sector is hurtling toward catastrophe as gas supply companies drastically cut deliveries to generation plants, citing an astronomical N5.6 trillion debt racked up by power firms.
The move has ignited fears of widespread blackouts, compounding the nation's chronic electricity woes and threatening to plunge millions deeper into darkness.
The Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) issued a stark alert on Thursday, with Managing Director Dr. Joy Ogaji warning that the supply reductions could destabilize the national grid entirely if not resolved swiftly.
In an exclusive interview with The PUNCH, Ogaji revealed that gas firms, squeezed by unpaid invoices, have begun throttling output, leaving plants starved for fuel and operating at critically low levels.
"This is a ticking time bomb; without urgent intervention, we'll see the grid collapse repeatedly, pushing Nigeria into deeper darkness," she cautioned.
The alarm bells rang just days after yet another grid failure blanketed the country in blackout earlier this week, the latest in a string of outages that have crippled businesses and households.
While engineers have restored partial service, injecting about 4,000 megawatts back into the system, many facilities remain hamstrung below capacity due to the gas shortfall.
Ogaji emphasized that the debt—accumulated over years of regulatory lapses and payment delays—has eroded trust between suppliers and generators, risking a vicious cycle of reduced output and escalating deficits.Industry watchers point to systemic failures, including tariff shortfalls and foreign exchange hurdles, as root causes of the ballooning arrears.
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