By Okeke Eunice
After facing criticism on social media, Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, has reversed his position on his controversial remarks regarding the alleged national grid collapse.
Following a power outage in parts of Lagos on Saturday, January 11, 2025, which was mistakenly linked to a national grid collapse, Peter Obi tweeted that the frequent grid failures occurring 12 times in 2024 had caused Nigerians significant hardship and setbacks.
Peter Obi stated that despite borrowing over $3.23 billion in the past four years to address electricity issues, Nigeria’s power sector continues to suffer from repeated grid collapses.
However, his remark triggered widespread reactions on X (formerly Twitter), with many Nigerians criticizing him for commenting without properly verifying the situation.
In response to Obi’s statement, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) clarified that the outage was due to the tripping of the Osogbo-Ihovbor and Benin-Omotosho lines, dismissing claims of a grid collapse as false.
Amid the criticism, Obi retracted his statement, explaining that his initial comment was based on reports from credible media sources. In a follow-up tweet, he acknowledged TCN’s clarification and confirmed that there had been no grid collapse.
He tweeted: “After my previous statement about the supposed collapse of the National Grid, which was based on reports from credible media sources, I have now discovered that there was no collapse. The incident actually involved the tripping of the Osogbo-Ihovbor and Benin-Omotosho lines, which impacted the Lagos area.”
The former governor of Anambra State expressed his gratitude to the TCN for their swift clarification, adding, “I truly hope we will focus on strengthening our power sector infrastructure and stay dedicated to boosting power generation to meet the increasing demands of over 200 million Nigerians.”