Electricity firms told customers to expect outages.
Major Nigerian cities including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, were left in darkness Wednesday after electricity workers began a strike over welfare issues.
The National Union of Electricity Workers (NUEE) had announced the strike on Tuesday during a protest at the Transmission Company Of Nigeria’s headquarters in Abuja.
Electricity distribution companies told customers that there will be power outage as a result of the strike.
“The Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC) wishes to inform its distinguished Customers that the interruption of the power supply being experienced across its franchise areas is due to the ongoing industrial issues between the NUEE and the TCN,” AEDC said in a notice.
The company said they were working to ensure that a mutual and amicable settlement is attained and power is restored.
The Eko Electricity Distribution Company said the industrial action by NUEE led to disruption of power supply to electricity consumers across the nation.
“In the meantime, we would like to reassure our esteemed customers that we are currently working with the relevant regulatory authorities and the parties involved to reach an amicable resolution and avert the strike action,” it said.
Kaduna electricity firm said “Supply shall be restored as soon as the contending issues are resolved.”
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company gave the same message to its customers.
“Following the industrial strike action embarked upon by the NUEE at TCN power stations, operations across the franchise area of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC (EEDC) have been disrupted,” the company said in a statement.
The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company and the Ikeja distribution company also passed similar messages to their customers.
Officials of the Ministry of Power and Ministry of Labour and Employment met with union officials for hours on Wednesday.
The TCN said the national grid was shut down at 3:01pm after several 330kV transmission lines and 33kV feeder lines across the power system network were switched off by the striking workers.
The Demands
The workers are protesting a directive that workers in acting capacity who should to assistant general managers must appear for promotion interviews.
They also complain about the failure of the relevant authorities to pay former-PHCN staff as agreed in December 2019.