Power Minister set to return to APC, eyes Oyo 2027 Guber race, amidst persistent national grid collapse

Oredola Adeola

Amid persistent power outages and the national grid collapse that occurred on Monday, Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, seemed preoccupied with politics rather than the call of duty, as investigations showed that he was planning to decamp to the All-Progressives Congress (APC) from the Accord Party.

Adelabu’s decision comes in the wake of the country’s struggle with power supply, including the recent nationwide outage that occurred on Monday, December 11, 2023, plunging major cities into darkness.

Check showed that on Monday, December 11, 2023, in the afternoon, the grid collapsed as the power dropped from 4,032.80 MegaWatts(MW) at about 12 pm to 43 megawatts at 1 pm and 0MW at about 5 pm on the same day, before it was later restored in the evening.

Ndidi Mbah, Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN’s spokesperson, in a statement, confirmed the outage and claimed restoration of the national power grid was ongoing.

With this latest development of grid collapse, Mr. Adelabu is therefore dividing his attention between the need to refocus the country’s power sector, and his gubernatorial ambition in 2027 under the ruling APC, having failed to achieve that aspiration in the 2023 contest.

This has raised concerns among investors who fear the possibility of divided attention which may impact negatively on Adelabu’s performance as Nigeria’s Power Minister, given his focus on his political ambitions rather than the dire need for significant investment across the value chain.

Grapevines have it that the Minister intends to rejoin the All-Progressive Congress (APC), after leaving the Accord Party, in a ceremony set to take place at the Party Office in Oke-Ado on December 15, 2023.

Adelabu’s return to the APC was outlined in a letter dated December 6, 2023, seen by EnergyDay and addressed to the Oyo State Chairman of APC, where he expressed his desire for the ceremony to be led by the State Executives and all Local Government Party Chairmen and Leaders.

The Power Minister in the letter emphasized his commitment to the party and his plan to install an APC-Led Government in Oyo state in 2027.

While preparation was in top gear for the Power Minister’s return to the ruling party, EnergyDay confirmed that the national electricity grid collapsed for the third time in 2023, which is about 138 times in the last decade.