Northeast power crisis worsens as Jalingo, Yola go dark ahead of planned TCN outage

Residents of Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, and Yola, the Adamawa State capital, are once again grappling with a prolonged electricity blackout following a fault at a Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, facility, a development that has intensified concerns over the reliability of power supply across the northeast.

The latest outage has left homes, businesses and public institutions without electricity for the past three days, with Jalingo metropolis among the worst affected.

The blackout has disrupted commercial activities, forced many businesses to rely on costly alternative sources of power and compounded the hardships faced by residents already struggling with rising living costs.

The incident comes at a particularly difficult time for electricity consumers in the region, as TCN had only recently announced a planned maintenance exercise that was expected to result in a temporary power interruption across several northeastern states.

According to the company, electricity consumers in Bauchi, Gombe, Damaturu, Maiduguri, Yola, Jalingo and surrounding communities are scheduled to experience a planned outage from 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 25, until 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 26, 2026, to enable maintenance work on critical transmission infrastructure.

However, the unexpected fault has effectively extended the blackout for many customers, sparking frustration among residents who say they have been left in darkness even before the commencement of the scheduled maintenance.

Business owners and residents expressed concern over the worsening power situation, noting that the prolonged outage has affected economic activities, increased operational costs and disrupted household routines.

Explaining the cause of the latest disruption, the Yola Electricity Distribution Company, YEDC, said the outage resulted from a technical fault at the 132kV Transmission Station operated by TCN.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the distribution company disclosed that the fault occurred at about 5:55 p.m. on Wednesday when the primary circuit breaker on TCN’s 125MVA transformer tripped at the transmission station.

According to YEDC, the incident affected all its 33KV feeders supplied from the facility, resulting in a widespread loss of electricity supply across Yola and its surrounding communities.

The company said it had been informed that TCN engineers were working to clear the fault and restore electricity supply to affected customers.

Despite the ongoing repair efforts, YEDC noted that the previously announced planned outage by TCN remains in effect. Consequently, electricity supply will continue to be managed in accordance with the approved outage schedule even after the fault is rectified.

The development has once again highlighted the vulnerability of electricity supply in the northeast, where technical faults on key transmission infrastructure often result in widespread blackouts affecting multiple states simultaneously.

For residents and businesses already contending with high energy costs, the combination of an unplanned system fault and an impending maintenance shutdown means a longer period of uncertainty, with many hoping that repair works and the scheduled maintenance will be completed within the stipulated timeframe.

YEDC appealed to customers to remain patient and understanding while engineers work to restore normal electricity supply, assuring consumers that efforts are ongoing to resolve the fault and stabilize the network.