Nigeria Records First Grid Collapse of 2026

By Adedapo Adesanya

Nigerians were plunged into a fresh electricity outage on Friday, January 23, as the national electricity grid suffered a total collapse, the first of such incident recorded in 2026.

Data from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) indicates that power generation fell to zero megawatts, while electricity supply to all 11 distribution companies dropped completely by about 1 pm.

The affected distribution firms include Benin, Eko, Enugu, Ikeja, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Abuja and Yola, all of which recorded zero load allocation at the time of the collapse.

The incident comes months after a series of grid failures in 2025, with the most recent occurring on December 29.

According to reports, Nigeria’s grid collapsed a total of 12 times alone last year.

These repeated breakdowns have persisted despite ongoing efforts to strengthen and expand the country’s power infrastructure.

Part of such efforts came from NISO as it announced on November 9, 2025 that it has collaborated with the West African Power Pool Information and Coordination Centre to carry out a synchronisation test linking Nigeria’s grid with the broader West African electricity network.

Business Post observed that the grid collapse has led to a decline in economic productivity. A development which has the potential to affect the wider business environment, as many businesses have to resort to more expensive and environmentally unfriendly alternatives.