Eko DisCo races to restore Festac power after vandalism, grid upgrades

Eko Electricity Distribution Plc is working to restore stable power supply to Festac Town and Amuwo Odofin after weeks of outages driven by national grid upgrades and a wave of cable vandalism that the utility says has hit no part of its network harder.

The company, known as Eko DisCo, said in a statement Wednesday that recent disruptions were “driven principally by upgrades and improvement activities at the national transmission level,” but that the situation was “compounded by sustained vandalism of underground distribution cables,” with Festac recording “the highest incidence across the EKEDP network.”

The acknowledgement underscores a dual challenge facing Nigeria’s power distributors: aging and vulnerable underground infrastructure in dense urban districts, layered on top of intermittent supply from the Transmission Company of Nigeria as it carries out network improvements.

Eko DisCo said it has completed and commissioned a new feeder, Festac 3, which draws power from the Ojo Transmission Station to give the area an alternative supply source. The feeder is not yet live. Energisation is “awaiting final load balancing arrangements and TCN approvals,” the company said, pointing to the transmission operator as the remaining gatekeeper before residents see the benefit.

In the meantime, supply on the existing Festac 1 33kV feeder has been “partially restored following the isolation of a faulty underground cable,” according to the statement, with crews continuing “fault location and restoration work daily.” The company did not give a timeline for full restoration.

EKEDP said it has put “hundreds of millions of naira” into the Festac network and “continues to do so,” a figure the company offered as evidence of investment though it did not break down the spending or specify a period.

On the security front, the utility said it has escalated the vandalism problem to “the highest levels of the Lagos State Police Command,” adding that arrests have been made and suspects are in custody. The company did not disclose how many suspects were detained or provide further case details.

Abiola Aloba, Eko DisCo’s general manager for corporate communications, framed the update as an effort to give customers “a clear and factual update on the power supply situation in the area,” pushing back against what the company characterised as confusion or frustration among residents over the extended outages.

The company said it has held “extensive engagements” with stakeholders across Festac-Amuwo, including the area’s business manager, the traditional institution of Amuwo Odofin, and local government leadership, and said its “door remains open to every resident and recognised community body through established channels.”

EKEDP thanked what it called “the overwhelming majority of Festac residents for their patience, understanding and constructive engagement,” language that hints at friction with a smaller group of residents who have pushed back more visibly against the outages.

That friction surfaced explicitly in the statement’s closing lines. While the company said it “fully respects the constitutional right to peaceful protest,” it appealed to “all parties to keep every form of engagement lawful, respectful and safe for residents, staff and electricity infrastructure alike,” warning that the shared goal of stable power could be “set back by avoidable disruption.” The wording suggests EKEDP is bracing for continued demonstrations even as it works to bring Festac 3 online.

For now, the company said only that it “remains committed to restoring and sustaining improved supply to Festac and to keeping customers informed at every stage” — leaving residents to wait on both TCN’s sign-off and the outcome of daily repair work on the damaged underground network.

Eko DisCos is one of 11 electricity distribution companies that emerged from the 2013 privatization of Nigeria’s state power assets, serving parts of Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland and the western districts that include Festac Town.