By: Goodluck E. Adubazi, Abuja.

Nigeria’s national electricity grid collapsed on Monday afternoon, plunging large parts of the country into darkness after major power plants simultaneously lost generation.

The latest outage, which occurred at about 3:00 p.m. local time, marks the second grid collapse in 2025 and the 17th since President Bola Tinubu assumed office, according to checks by Standard Times Nigeria.

Data obtained by Standard Times Nigeria Newspaper’s correspondent show that power generation had earlier peaked at approximately 4,800 megawatts on Monday before sharply falling to 139 megawatts by mid-afternoon.
This is the second nationwide grid failure recorded this year.

The first occurred on September 10, 2025.
As of the time of reporting, all 22 power plants connected to the national grid had lost generation, effectively shutting down electricity supply across much of the country.
The cause of the collapse was not immediately confirmed.

However, the incident came amid ongoing efforts by the Nigerian Independent System Operator to increase power output following recent gas supply constraints linked to pipeline vandalism.
Nigeria’s electricity grid has long been plagued by instability, with repeated collapses highlighting persistent challenges in generation, transmission, and fuel supply across Africa’s most populous nation.