By Nnanke Harry Willie

At 9:30hrs on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, a supposed picketing exercise by members of the  National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) led to a total blackout in the entire federation of Nigeria. This is because the officials of NUEE and workers of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) switched off the National Grid. They also made a video recording of their actions and gleefully shared it on social media. This is reprehensible!

As a Nigerian, I feel assaulted by the actions of the NUEE and TCN workers. In the first place, I find it hard to understand how picketing by some union leaders led to an intrusion of critical high-security facilities such as the national grid.  The Cambridge Dictionary definition of picketing is “a worker or group of workers who protest outside a building to prevent other workers from going inside, especially because they have a disagreement with their employers”. In other words, the activities of the NUEE ought to have been outside the building or perimeter fencing of the critical TCN facilities.

The DisCos said that the picketing of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) by the union members had plunged customers under their networks into darkness.

Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) said “Due to the ongoing nationwide picketing of Transmission Stations by the NUEE, we are currently experiencing disruption of power supply as most stations within our network have been shut down.

Similarly, Eko Disco (EKEDC) said the grounding of activities at the TCN-controlled power stations had led to the disruption of electricity supply to customers across the country.

The fact is, however, they (electricity union leaders) have always done this in recent times and nothing happened.

Strangely the government knew that they would do it. In other Climes, they would have drafted senior management and security into the facility to ensure that they do not switch off the grid while the senior management would hold forte until the issues are sorted out.

Better still, government could have engaged them well enough within the notice period to ensure that this is avoided.

The consequence is that EVERYONE SUFFERS and this as a crime against the people!

The nation bleeds, TCN loses money, workers lose money, and government further worsens its battered image.

No one, not even the President of Nigeria should be allowed to willy-nilly put off the nation’s power supply and create a grievous bouquet of economic losses, psychological pain and emotional anguish along with the many security implications.

While I urge the government to handle this with uncharacteristic dispatch, laws must be evoked or put in place to forestall such a criminal occurrence.

There is more than enough suffering and pain in the land. No group: not NUEE; not the TCN workers and not the government should be allowed to pelt us with more treacherous dysfunctional missiles.