The Parliamentary Staff Union of Nigeria (PASAN) closed the National Assembly on Monday in support with Organised Labour’s indefinite strike action to press the demand for a livable wage for Nigerian workers.
The union shut the two gates to the Assembly complex, preventing workers and other visitors from entering.
The electricity and water supply to the two buildings housing the Senate and the House of Representatives as well as other facilities in the complex have been shut down by the union.
As a result of the industrial action, committee activities scheduled for Monday such as revenue monitoring hearing by the House Committee on Finance was cancelled.
Similarly, the labour union has shutdown the national grid, resulting in a nationwide outage. The shutdown occurred around 2.19 am on Monday 3rd June, 2024 according to the Public Affairs Manager, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) Ndidi Mbah in Abuja on Monday morning.
She noted in a statement that, “The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby informs the general public that the Labour Union has shut down the national grid, resulting in black out nationwide.
“The national grid shut down occured at about 2.19am this morning, 3rd June 2024.
“At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero.
“Other transmission substations that were shut down by the Labour Union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.
“On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.
“At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.
“We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide.”
