Nigeria's Labour Unions over the course of the night, crippled the national transmission grid, sending the entire nation into darkness following the notice of a nationwide strike the Union issued on May 31, 2024 in the course of trying to advance their negotiations with the Federal Government.

The nationwide strike was to commence on Monday June 3, 2024 and the Federal Government and other stakeholders had engaged the unions and other critical stakeholders over the weekend to avert the action.

A statement signed by the General Manager, Public Affairs of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), narrated how members of the unions forcefully took over TCN infrastructure and enforced the shutdowns.

"The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby informs the general public that the Labour Union has shut down the national grid, resulting in black out nationwide. The national grid shut down occurred at about 2.19am this morning, 3rd June 2024," the statement read. 

"At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero.

"Other transmission substations that were shut down, by the Labour Union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.

"On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am," the statement added.

Mr. Mbah further shed light on efforts underway to restore supply to Nigerians that would bypass the infrastructure that the unions had seized control of.

"At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the Labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.

"We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide," he said.