Grid In The the Dark Again: Obi Slams Tinubu As Power Failures Mock 2022 Promise
When a nation’s power grid keeps blinking off, campaign promises begin to flicker with it.
Former presidential candidate Peter Obi has taken aim at President Bola Tinubu over Nigeria’s recurring electricity grid collapses, saying the outages expose a widening gap between pledge and performance on stable power supply.
In a post on X, Obi recalled Tinubu’s 2022 campaign vow that Nigerians should not re-elect him if he failed to deliver steady electricity within his first term.
He noted that the national grid had already collapsed twice in January 2026 and reportedly about 12 times in 2025, calling the trend “deeply concerning”.
Obi also criticised the President’s ongoing trip to Turkey, contrasting Turkey’s electricity generation of over 120,000MW for a population of about 87 million with Nigeria’s output, which he said is under five per cent of that figure.
He urged the President to prioritise domestic challenges and called on Nigerians to demand accountability now, not at election time.
The criticism comes amid fresh disruptions to the grid. On Tuesday, the system collapsed again, the second failure in four days and the third since December 29, 2025.
Power generation plunged from 3,825MW at 10am to just 39MW by 11am, after peaking at 4,762MW earlier in the morning.
At the height of the outage, load allocation to distribution companies fell to 0.00MW, triggering widespread blackouts.
Electricity Distribution Companies confirmed total loss of supply in parts of Abuja and Port Harcourt, attributing the collapse primarily to low generation, while insisting the sector is not sliding back into an era of chronic failures.
Their spokesperson, Sunday Oduntan, said response times have improved compared to 2024 but admitted inadequate generation remains the sector’s biggest weakness.
The Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) said the incident was triggered by a voltage disturbance at the Gombe Transmission Substation, which cascaded to Jebba, Kainji and Ayede, tripping lines and generating units and causing a partial system collapse.
Restoration began within minutes, with supply later restored.
The latest outage has reignited calls for urgent investment in transmission infrastructure, higher generation capacity and tougher grid management, as Nigerians once again ask when “steady power” will move from promise to reality.
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