Amidst public backlash, Peter Obi makes u-turn on national grid collapse

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Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential contender, has changed his mind about his contentious comment about the purported breakdown of the national grid in response to social media criticism.

Obi said in a tweet that Nigerians had experienced “untold setback and hardship” as a result of the grid’s continuous collapse, which occurred 12 times in 2024, following a power outage in some areas of Lagos on Saturday, January 11, 2025, which many mistakenly linked to the collapse of the national grid.

He claims that Nigeria’s power sector has been plagued by frequent system collapses even after borrowing more than $3.23 billion over the past four years to address its electrical issues.

However, a lot of Nigerians criticised and accused Obi of not checking issues before responding to them, which caused a flurry of replies on X, formerly Twitter.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) responded to Obi’s comment by stating that the outage was caused by the Osogbo-Ihovbor and Benin-Omotosho lines tripping, proving that the reports of a grid collapse were untrue.

Obi changed his mind in the face of criticism, claiming that his original statement was supported by reports from reliable media sources.

In a follow-up tweet, Obi cited his earlier comments and stated that, as a result of TCN’s clarifications, he had learnt that there was no grid collapse.

He tweeted: “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.

The former governor of Anambra State thanking the TCN for their timely clarifications said, “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.”

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