by Darlington Okoka
Education, News, Nigeria Situation

The Constant Vandalization of Transmission Towers and Its Impact On the Nigerian Power Sector

Out of the three sectors of the power supply chain in the country which are the generation, transmission and distribution, only the transmission is controlled by the government, the other two are private sector driven. Therefore, the constant and growing trend of transmission tower vandalization poses a great threat to the already erratic power supply of the country and the depleted revenue of the federal government.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) report states that in 2022, a total of ninety (90) towers were destroyed (some vandalized while others collapsed and thereafter vandalized). In 2023, one hundred and eleven (111) towers were destroyed which is a 23.3% increment from 2022. As of 27th October 2024 TCN reported a total of sixty-five (65) vandalized towers in 2024 but within this month of November alone, a total of 34 towers have been vandalized (31 towers on the 330KV Benin – Egbin and Benin – Omotosho lines; and 3 towers on the ongoing repair of the 132KV Ahoada – Yenegoa transmission line). Hence as of November 2024 a total of ninety-nine (99) towers have been vandalized. This is quite challenging as these tower vandalizations’ are severely impacting the already unstable power infrastructure of the country.

Major Impacts

  1. The constant vandalization of the transmission towers has led to incessant power failure and sudden grid collapse in the country.
  2. It has led to the wastage of the scarce resources of the country as the federal government who owns the transmission network will still find the replacement of the towers either directly or indirectly.
  3. Security has become a major challenge, as the perpetrators tend to kill innocent citizens who might be on their way to or from their farms during the time of the vandalization, and since the vandalization usually leads to a power outage, it might also pose some other security threats.

Proposed Solutions

  1. From the statistics given, it can be inferred that this recent trend of tower vandalization resulted from the lack of early repairs of damaged towers. Considering the age of these towers, they require periodic maintenance but when a tower is damaged, it sometimes takes days to get it fixed, as a result, these “Iron Condemn” people get access to these towers and their accessories and start stealing them. With the success of stealing the damaged tower and the profit made, they have decided to start vandalizing online towers which is quite ridiculous. If the entire TCN towers can be routinely inspected and maintained, the issue of sudden collapse or damage of towers would not arise and the issue of vandalization of collapsed towers will not come up.
  2. Local community security empowerment is advised at this time since these towers pass through very distant locations within the community. The local indigenes should be empowered to guard the towers that pass through their community, community security of facilities is usually more effective for facilities of this nature. Also, the regional TCN managers should try to engage with the village heads, traditional rulers and chiefs as the case may be to seek their collaboration in ensuring the safety and security of their towers.
  3. Security agencies and other para-military should be carried along to assist in the safeguarding of the tower and its accessories.
  4. Wireless CCTV cameras should be deployed on the entire route of the transmission lines especially those lines in the interior part (forest/bushes) and a dedicated team should be assigned to monitor the cameras and call the attention of the management in case of any eventualities.
  5. Instead of the total reliance on the national grid; states, regions or zones can start looking at the possibility of setting up their own grid network which will be easier to manage both security-wise and the efficiency of operation. For example, having a South-South Grid Network or Edo/Delta Grid Network or even a grid network for Edo State alone, these sub-grids will be easier to monitor and maintain, and since states now have the power to generate, transmit and distribute, a state can decide to have its own grid network and manage/protect it herself.
  6.  Provision of constant power supply along the transmission line will deter any intruder from trying to get access to the tower and its accessories, but because there are some outages on the line, these vandals capitalize on it to vandalize the towers. If the lines are constantly energized, it will go a long way to protecting the towers from vandalization.
  7. The government should ensure that children are educated, the growing number of out-of-school children is alarming, and these children are becoming a great menace to the society. Proper investigation has shown that most of these menaces especially when it has to deal with the theft of irons are perpetrated by those “iron condemn” people who eventually are out-of-school children. The government should therefore look into the compulsory education scheme for these children to ensure that this problem is reduced to the barest minimum if not completely eradicated.

Electricity power supply contributes greatly to the growth and development of a country, if these constant vandalization of transmission towers are not looked into, we might end up not having a robust national grid which might lead to a total blackout in the country leaving the citizens at the mercy of generating sets or renewable energy.

Darlington Okoka
(+234) 803 9233 787
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Twitter: @darlookoka
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