Ikeja Electric blamed the grid for Band A outages. TCN says its own records point elsewhere

When Band A customers in parts of Lagos lost power this week, Ikeja Electric pointed at the national grid. The company that runs the grid's high-voltage lines has now pushed back, in public and with numbers.

What Ikeja Electric said

In a public notice dated 5 November, Ikeja Electric (IKEDC) apologised for outages on its Band A feeders on 3 and 4 November, according to TCN's account of the notice. TCN says the notice put the cuts down to "grid instability". Vanguard, which also reported the apology, said the notice did not give much detail on the cause. We have not seen the notice itself.

What TCN says its records show

The Transmission Company of Nigeria answered in a press release on 6 November, signed by its management. It looked at every interruption on the feeders supplying Ikeja Electric on 1 and 2 November and sorted them by cause:

• 68 per cent were load shedding to keep the grid's frequency steady, because not enough power was being generated.
• 26 per cent were down to Ikeja Electric, either not following the load it was allocated by the National Control Centre or faults and works on its own network.
• 6 per cent were TCN's own planned maintenance, switching or line limits.

TCN also looked at the three 33kV feeders named in Ikeja Electric's notice, including MTN, Iju Water Works and Rack Centre. It counted 46 interruptions. Of those, 29 were load shedding, 14 were recorded against Ikeja Electric (9 for not keeping to its allocation and 5 for faults on its network) and 3 were scheduled TCN maintenance on the Ogba to Alimosho line on 1 November. TCN says the Rack Centre cut on 2 November was a cable fault on the DisCo's network, which the DisCo's own crew repaired.

"None of the recorded interruptions was a TCN equipment fault or trip," the release says. It adds that "TCN can only transmit the energy made available to it".

One thing to note

TCN's figures cover 1 and 2 November. Ikeja Electric's notice was about 3 and 4 November. So the two are not describing exactly the same days. TCN's point is about the pattern on those feeders, not a day-by-day rebuttal.

Some outlets wrote that the load allocation comes from NISO, while TCN's release says the National Control Centre. NISO now runs the grid, so the two describe the same function.

Who decides

TCN cites Section 67 of the Electricity Act 2023, which it says gives NISO the job of finding the root cause of grid disturbances. It referred the public to NISO's own explanation. On 5 November NISO and the Ministry of Power blamed this week's poor supply on gas shortages at power plants and low water at dams. Read that story.

We found no reply from Ikeja Electric to TCN's statement by Saturday morning.

What it means for you

If you pay Band A rates and your light goes off, the reason matters. Low generation is a national problem. A fault on the DisCo's own lines is the DisCo's to fix, and quickly. If your Band A feeder keeps missing its 20 hours, complain to Ikeja Electric in writing and keep a copy. If that fails, you can take it to NERC's customer complaints forum for your area. Who switched off your light? A simple guide.