By Jemimah Wellington, JKNewsMedia Reporter
WIDESPREAD POWER outages have hit key districts of Abuja after vandals struck and damaged critical electricity infrastructure in the early hours of Friday.
The incident, involving the theft of cables from a 132-kilovolt (kV) transmission line, disrupted over 60% of the city’s power supply.
According to a statement by Ndidi Mbah, Public Affairs Manager of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the attack targeted transmission lines and underground cables supplying bulk electricity to the 132-kV Central Area transmission substation in Katampe.
The vandals reportedly carted away 40 meters of 1x500mm² XLPE conductors from the Millennium Park axis of Abuja, affecting eight distribution feeders.
Areas now experiencing outages include Maitama, Wuse, Jabi, Life Camp, Asokoro, Utako, Mabushi, and parts of the Presidential Villa.
“This sabotage severely impacts electricity distribution in Abuja,” Mbah stated, adding that TCN engineers have been dispatched to repair the damage.
She urged citizens to report suspicious activities, emphasising the need for collective efforts to safeguard national power installations.
TCN disclosed that this attack comes less than a month after vandals damaged the 330-kV Shiroro-Katampe transmission line.
Similarly, in November 2024, vandals targeted and destroyed the Lokoja-Gwagwalada transmission line 1, further highlighting the persistent challenge of infrastructure sabotage in Nigeria’s power sector.
