A nationwide blackout is imminent as electricity workers, under the aegis of National Union of Electricity Employees, (NUEE), have vowed to down tool if the demand by the organised labour against the alleged plan to sell Transmission Company of Nigeria, (TCN), to some investors is not halted.
The NUEE, according to its General Secretary, Comrade Joe Ajaero, vowed to embark on the suspended nationwide protest if the government continued with the plan of selling the TCN, also appealed to the National Assembly and Nigerians to resist the push for the sale of TCN which they said will further leave the nation with regrets and ‘had I known’.
They said the memo serves as notice to Nigerians that the union will resume its suspended industrial action for the non-implementation of agreements reached in the meetings brokered by the leadership of the House of Representatives and Ministry of Labour”.
Ajaero said the union wondered why the government is still bent on selling off TCN when the transmission and distribution have after eight years of privatisation failed to yield expected turnaround of the power sector
Almost eight years after the privatisation of the power sector, there has not been any visible improvement in terms of power supply, expansion or investments by the new owners of the DisCos and the Generation Companies (GenCos).
“In the sector’s performance chain today, the Transmission network, with a wheeling capacity of 8,000MW has been strengthened to comfortably wheel out power generated by the GenCos, whose average operational generation output is far below the total installed generation capacity (they are not generating full capacities). Nigerians have had to grapple with darkness as the DisCos reject energy wheeled to them by Transmission Company of Nigeria”, the union said.
