Ikeja Electric
Olamilekan Abayomi
Lagos residents under Ikeja Electric’s network have been dealing with ongoing blackouts, and the company says the root cause is a reduction in electricity allocation from the national grid. In a statement posted on its official X handle Friday, Ikeja Electric apologized for the disruptions and explained that several areas are affected because the amount of power it receives has dropped.
The main driver of the reduced allocation is a nationwide shortfall in generation. Nigeria’s grid relies heavily on gas-fired thermal plants, and gas supply constraints have cut output across the country. When gas to plants like Egbin is disrupted, generation plummets. Egbin Power Plant, with 1,320MW installed capacity, went offline after a contractor died during underwater repairs on April 28, and the facility remained disconnected for safety checks. That single shutdown highlighted Nigeria’s “single-point failure risk” — when one major plant trips, millions sit in the dark because there’s no reserve generation or grid flexibility.
Because available supply is less than demand, Ikeja Electric has implemented controlled load shedding to keep the grid stable. “As part of efforts to maintain grid stability and ensure equitable distribution of available power, temporary load shedding is being implemented across affected feeders and locations,” the company said. This means rotating outages so no single area bears the entire burden while the system avoids collapse.
The national grid itself is structurally underpowered. Nigeria’s grid delivers about 3,000 MW on a good day, but estimated demand is over 30,000 MW. With such a gap, even when generation improves slightly, distribution companies still can’t meet customer needs. Lagos has transferred oversight of intrastate electricity to the Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission and signed power purchase agreements for up to 400 MW with Fenchurch Power, Mainland Power, and Viathan Engineering to supply public facilities. The goal is to reduce dependence on the national grid, but those projects take time to scale.
Distribution challenges make the cuts feel worse at the customer level. Ikeja Electric and other Discos face energy theft, non-cost-reflective tariffs, poor metering, and liquidity shortfalls that create a cycle of underinvestment. Without enough revenue, upgrades to transformers, feeders, and lines lag behind Lagos’s growing load. So even when grid allocation improves, local infrastructure bottlenecks can still trigger outages.
The economic impact on Lagos is immediate. Businesses spend up to 40% of operating costs on diesel and petrol self-generation, according to the World Bank. A frozen food trader in Lagos told NAN she runs her generator more than she uses public power: “If there is no light, my goods spoil. If I use fuel, I lose profit”. A welder said, “We spend more on diesel than on raw materials. Sometimes, customers leave because we cannot deliver on time”. The LCCI president added that frequent outages and high generator costs are “crippling productivity and raising the cost of doing business”.
Residents report security and quality-of-life issues too. In Igando, Isheri, Idimu, and Ikotun, people say power is rarely restored during the day and lasts only briefly when it returns. A community leader noted that prolonged darkness makes streets vulnerable: “When there is no light, the whole place is in darkness. That is when thieves operate freely”. Theft and burglary have increased since the situation deteriorated.
Ikeja Electric says it’s engaging stakeholders across the power value chain to stabilize supply and reduce the impact. At the state level, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has signed PPAs with independent producers to improve reliability for critical infrastructure. But until gas supply to thermal plants stabilizes and Lagos’s own generation projects deliver, the city will continue relying on load shedding to balance the limited allocation it gets from the national grid.
