Power restored in Akwa Ibom after three days of outage

While the outage lasted, Akwa Ibom residents and entrepreneurs suffered losses as they resorted to powering their homes and businesses with power-generating sets.

Electricity has been restored to Akwa Ibom State after about three days of outage.

“Kindly be informed that supply has been restored to Uyo, Eket, Ekim, and Itu Transmission Stations.

“We sincerely appreciate our customers for their patience and understanding during the outage,” Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution PLC (PHED) said on Saturday in a public notice to its customers.

PHED is responsible for the distribution of electricity to Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa states.

Akwa Ibom has an independent power plant, Ibom Power Plant, which enables the state to enjoy a steady power supply even when other parts of Nigeria are in darkness due to the frequent breakdown of the national grid.

Meyen Etukudo, shortly before his sack as the managing director of Ibom Power Company Ltd, had attributed the outage in Akwa Ibom to the alleged cutting off of gas supply to the power plant by its supplier, Savannah Energy, and the fault on the 132 KV Itu-Aba Transmission Line, which transports power from the national grid in and out of the state.

However, Accugas Limited, a subsidiary of Savannah Energy, denied the allegation that the gas company was responsible for the power outage in Akwa Ibom.

“The power cut in Akwa Ibom State is entirely due to the reported fault in the 132-KV Aba-Itu transmission line, which, unfortunately, is preventing power being transmitted from the National Grid into the State,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.

“Ibom Power Company is one of 23 thermal power generation companies which channel power to the national grid, which in turn disseminates all accumulated power to each state of the federation through the electricity distribution companies (“Discos”).

“Indeed, Accugas supplies gas to enable 20 per cent of Nigeria’s thermal generation capacity and, as such, is a critical enabler of the Nigerian economy.

“Within Akwa Ibom State, Accugas has been the sole supplier of gas to Ibom Power Company since 2014 and, together with other Savannah subsidiaries, has invested over US$1.5 billion in gas development within the state,” the company said, adding that its investment in Akwa Ibom demonstrates its commitment to the state and the Nigerian economy.

While the outage lasted, Akwa Ibom residents and entrepreneurs suffered losses as they resorted to powering their homes and businesses with power-generating sets.

“What we are going through right now is devastating, considering the high cost of fuel,” a resident told this newspaper on Thursday. “How long can we continue to bear this suffering from incompetent managers of our resources?”