Nigeria’s national electricity grid collapsed completely on Friday, causing blackouts in portions of the country for the first time in 2026.
According to figures from the Nigerian Independent System Operator, NISO, power generation decreased to zero megawatts, and electrical supply to all 11 distribution companies was fully cut off by 1 p.m.
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.
These repeated breakdowns have persisted despite ongoing efforts to strengthen and expand the country’s power infrastructure.
