21 October 2013, Kaduna — Kaduna and its environs were on Saturday thrown into darkness following the shutdown of the Mando transmission power plant.
At the time of filing of this report, power had not been restored to some of the affected areas including Rigachikun, Ungwan Kaji, Rafin Guza, Ungwan Dosa, Badarawa, Malali, Ungwan Sarki, Ungwan Rimi, Ungwan Shanu, Ungwan Kanawa, Tudun Wada and Hayin Banki.
Residents who spoke to our correspondent lamented that the blackout affected their daily activities.
A resident of Ungwan Kaji who did not want his name in print said his business has suffered tremendously due to the blackout.
He pleaded with the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to restore power.
Mama Caro, a fish seller at the Badarawa market, said she just stocked her refrigerator with fish when the power outage occurred. “I went to the market on Saturday morning and bought a lot of fish, now the fish is already getting bad,” she said yesterday.
The Assistant Manager, Public Affairs PHCN-KEDC, Baba Limmy Omar-Ikaige, could not be reached for comments.
But chairman of National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Kawo Business Unit, Comrade Muhammad Bashir, attributed the fault to a breakdown of the power plant.
“Mando transmission is responsible for transmitting power to the other stations which in turn transmit to other parts of the state. So if the Mando plant is down, other stations will not get power to distribute. We only have access to 120 feeders, the plant is expected to be working with four tans, but right now it is working with only one tan as the other three have failed. Our engineers are working round the clock to ensure that power is restored,” he said.
On the ongoing crisis between PHCN workers and the Federal Government over hand over of the company, he said: “We are gearing up to fight the government and if it does not pay us our entitlements, we will have no option than to put the whole country in total darkness. There is no worker that has been paid his full entitlements and God knows that we served the government to the best of our abilities. The government should settle the workers before it hands over the company to private investors because we will do everything within our powers to make sure that there is no privatization until we have been settled”.
– Daily Trust