Just two days to the end of 2025, the Federal Government’s recent assurance that electricity supply would be fully restored within “24–42 hours” has been dealt a significant blow, as the national electricity grid suffered yet another collapse on Monday afternoon.
The latest collapse has reignited public concern over government assurances on power stability, with many Nigerians expressing frustration online and across social platforms over the recurring outages. Although the Federal Government had previously portrayed “notable improvements” in grid performance, this latest failure — just days before year-end — underscores persistent systemic challenges.
Coupled with incessant power failures in parts of Abuja and the country during the Christmas and Boxing Day celebrations, Nigerians are wondering when government excuses will end.
Analysts say the government must accelerate infrastructure investment, strengthen gas-to-power supply chains, and modernise transmission networks to reduce the frequency of such debilitating outages.
The Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) confirmed in a statement that the National Grid experienced a major system disturbance at 14:01 hours on Monday, 29 December 2025, resulting in a partial collapse that caused power generation and supply to plunge nationwide.
According to grid data, total generation fell sharply from earlier peaks to critically low levels, with some reports indicating drops from over 2,000 megawatts to below 140MW within an hour — effectively crippling electricity supply across most states and major cities.
Data from Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies (DisCos) showed the severity of the outage as only a handful of operators received power at the height of the collapse. For example, the Ibadan and Abuja DisCos recorded minimal allocations of about 30MW and 20MW respectively, while many others such as Eko, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt and Yola recorded zero megawatts, leaving millions of homes, businesses and services in darkness.
The blackout was one of the most widespread in recent times, compounding frustration among Nigerians already grappling with frequent power disruptions.
NISO noted that the grid disturbance came against the backdrop of ongoing gas supply constraints following the vandalisation of the Lagos–Escravos–Lagos gas pipeline on 10 December 2025, an incident that had already throttled fuel supply to several thermal power plants and weakened the grid’s resilience.
Experts and sector operators have repeatedly highlighted the fragility of the national grid, pointing to ageing transmission infrastructure, insufficient generation capacity and challenges in gas supply as underlying causes of recurrent collapses. Nairametrics
Despite the disruption, the Delta power generation complex successfully operated in “island mode”, isolating itself from the broader grid and enabling continued supply to parts of Delta and Edo states — including Oghara, Amukpe, Benin and Efunrun substations — with 114MW produced from four units at the Delta Thermal Power Station.
In response to the collapse, NISO said it activated emergency restoration procedures from its National Control Centre in Osogbo, deploying dispatch and monitoring tools to stabilise the system.
Late Monday and into the night, power supply was progressively restored nationwide and system stability was normalised, NISO confirmed.
NISO also stated that investigations are ongoing to determine the exact cause and sequence of events that triggered the disturbance, with plans to implement measures aimed at preventing future recurrences. The operator reiterated its commitment to proactive grid management and best operational practices.
