The Nigeria Labour Congress raised the alarm on Sunday over what it described as a coordinated scheme to loot the Transmission Company of Nigeria through a series of questionable emergency refurbishment contracts estimated at nearly ₦20 billion, warning that the deals posed a clear and present danger to the national grid and to the financial survival of the power transmission company. In a petition signed by NLC President Joe Ajaero and addressed to the Minister of Power, the union alleged that a group of TCN officials had abandoned their oath of service in favour of what it described as a gluttonous rush to cash out, even at the risk of collapsing the company. The labour centre called for the immediate suspension of all ongoing emergency procurement processes pending a full forensic audit and urged the EFCC and ICPC to investigate each of the items flagged in the petition.
The NLC cited specific contract figures as evidence of what it characterised as a blueprint for looting dressed up in the language of infrastructure maintenance. It questioned the logic of spending ₦191 million to control erosion on a single tower, identified as T89 Ihovbor in Okada, and raised similar concerns about ₦290,654,361 proposed for fencing and drainage at the Biu 132/33KV substation, ₦226,024,555 for works on a single tower at Etsako, and a further ₦239,498,443.75 for comparable activities. The union further alleged that there were plans to purchase the same specialised transformers and switchgears in multiple batches from the same supplier at escalating costs, a pattern it described not as procurement but as money laundering disguised as grid expansion. It also raised concerns about plans to overstock consumables such as insulators, conductors, and clamps at prices far above market value, with goods that may either be left to deteriorate or never delivered at all.
Beyond the procurement figures, the NLC alleged that the cabal within TCN was exploiting the cover of emergency declarations to bypass due process and bury questionable transactions in a blizzard of paperwork. It called on the Minister to investigate the head of procurement and other members of TCN management if they were found to be the architects of the alleged scheme, to probe the reported sale of land behind the TCN substation in Katampe, Abuja, and to examine the attempted irregular promotion of a staff member employed in September 2021 to the position of Assistant General Manager in 2026, contrary to established employment rules. The union said the NLC could not stand by and watch its members — engineers, linesmen, and other core technical staff — alongside the Nigerian public, become victims of what it termed alleged avarice.
