No explosion at Zungeru Power Plant, says Minister

Photo caption: Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu

By Emeka Ugwuanyi

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, has dismissed as untrue reports that there was an explosion at Zungeru Power Plant on Monday.

Adelabu stated this while reacting to reportedly explosion at one of Nigeria’s power generating plants on Monday evening. He stated that the Zungeru power plant was supplying electricity to the national grid as he spoke, adding that the power plant was operating at optimum capacity.

In addition, the Minister’s Special Adviser, Strategic Communication and Media Relations, Mr. Bolaji Tunji, in a statement informed that the Minister stated that the report of an explosion at the plant was a figment of the imagination of the purveyors of such information.

The Minister said: “I have spoken with the Managing Director of Mainstream Energy and I can assure you that nothing of such took place in Zungeru. The plant is working and it continues to supply to the grid. We have video evidence from Zungeru that nothing like that occurred today and whoever is interested should go there to find out. It is rather unfortunate that people will sit down somewhere and cook up this sort of story. It is unpatriotic. Such people should desist from creating unnecessary panic”.

The Minister assured Nigerians of adequate supply of energy. “We have seen the worst in the sector, we can only get better. We promised incremental supply of power and that is what is happening now and that's why we have the present improvement and it will continue,” he added.

The Executive Director at Mainstream Energy Solutions LImited, operators of Zungeru Power Plant, Siraj Abdullahi, also described the reports as fake.

Abdullahi urged the public to disregard the trending news, noting that “We are fine in Zungeru nothing happened and we are on the grid.

"There is fake news on several media houses about an explosion in Zungeru.  This is a wicked lie.  We are fine in Zungeru nothing happened and we are on the grid.

“Please disregard this hate news.  We are doing a video rebuttal soon. The time is 3:05 Monday 1st July, 2024" he said.