The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 polls, Peter Obi, has made a u-turn over his comment on the alleged collapse of the national grid.
Following blackouts experienced in parts of Lagos on Saturday, Obi in a post on X said the incessant fall of the grid which happened 12 times in 2024 has subjected Nigerians to ‘untold setback and hardship.’
He said despite borrowing over $3.23 billion in the last four years to fix its electricity problems, the recurrent occurrences of grid collapse have continued to mar the nation’s power sector.
But he faced backlash by many Nigerians who accused him of not verifying issues before reacting to them.
Obi thereafter reversed his stance, saying his initial comment was based on reports from reputable media platforms.
In a follow-up post on X, Obi said he has learnt that there was no grid collapse following clarifications by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) on the matter.
“Following my earlier message regarding the alleged collapse of the National Grid, which was based on reports from reputable media platforms, I have since learned that there was no such collapse. Instead, the incident involved the tripping of the Osogbo-Ihovbor and Benin-Omotosho lines, which affected the Lagos axis.
“I appreciate the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) for their prompt clarification on the matter.
“I sincerely hope we will prioritize enhancing our infrastructure in the power sector and remain committed to improving power generation to meet the growing needs of over 200 million Nigerians.”
Earlier, the TCN clarified that the outage was caused by tripping of the Osogbo-Ihovbor and Benin-Omotosho lines indicating that the claims about grid collapse was fake news.