National Grid Collapses Again, Triggers Nationwide Blackout

Nigeria’s national power grid collapsed on Tuesday morning, January 27, 2026, for the second time in four days, plunging the country into widespread blackout after power generation crashed due to a system-wide disturbance, officials and industry sources confirmed.

According to The PUNCH, electricity generation fell sharply from 3,825 megawatts at 10:00 a.m. to just 39 megawatts by 11:00 a.m., despite earlier peaking at 4,762 megawatts around 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, based on real-time monitoring data.

Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EkoDisCo) confirmed the outage in a statement, saying the system collapse occurred at about 10:48 a.m., resulting in loss of power supply across its network, while efforts were ongoing with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to restore electricity.

This incident marks the second grid collapse in January 2026 and the third in less than one month, following earlier collapses on December 29, 2025, and Friday, January 23, 2026. At the time of Tuesday’s failure, load allocation to all distribution companies dropped to 0.00 MW, indicating a total nationwide outage.

The Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) has yet to explain the cause of Tuesday’s collapse but confirmed that the outage followed the simultaneous tripping of several 330kV transmission lines, similar to the disturbance that triggered Friday’s nationwide blackout.