By Oyez Olatunde Rex
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, on Monday disclosed that the “labour union has shut down” the national grid, precipitating a blackout nationwide.
This development is coming as the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, commenced the earlier declared indefinite nationwide strike on Monday.
Organized Labour has been at loggerheads with the FG and the Organized Private sector over the federal government’s refusal to increase the minimum wage from N60,000.
Ndidi Mbah, the general manager, TCN in a Statement on Monday said workers at the Benin Transmission were sent from the control room and beaten by the protesters.
According to him: “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 the 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.
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“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 situation is such that the labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide,” TCN stated.
