It said the bomb blast occurred on Thursday, describing the development as another sad day, following a similar incident that occurred last week.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, who disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja, said, “The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby confirms the destruction of three of its towers along Maiduguri-Damaturu Transmission Line with explosives yesterday, December 28, 2023.
“In addition to the destruction of the three towers, the very sad incident also cost the life of an NSCDC officer. It is truly another very sad day for us at TCN, with this incident, especially with the loss of life of the NSCDC official.
“TCN commiserates with the family of the deceased and the NSCDC for this very sad and shocking incident.”
Last week, parts of Borno and Yobe states suffered blackouts following the bombing of a power transmission tower around Katsaita Village in Yobe State.
TCN had stated that vandals used explosives to bring down the tower on Thursday, December 21, 2023, which eventually pulled down another tower on the transmission line route.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby states that one of its towers, tower T372 around Katsaita Village in Yobe State was vandalised, yesterday (Thursday), bringing down the 330kV transmission tower which pulled down tower T373 along the same transmission line route.
“The incident, which took place at about 21:18 of yesterday, December 21, 2023, caused the failure of power supply to parts of the North-East, namely, Yobe and Borno states,” Mbah stated in a statement issued in Abuja.
The company stated that “while patrolling the line to ascertain the cause of the cut in power supply, TCN engineers discovered the fallen towers, and the villagers confirmed they heard a loud explosion before the tower came down.
“On closer investigation, the engineers found evidence of explosive used by the vandals in bringing down the towers.”
It, however, stated that TCN had mobilised one of its contractors to the site of the incident to commence the reconstruction of the transmission towers damaged by the vandals.
“TCN strongly condemns the incident and regrets the inconvenience caused to the government and people of Yobe and Borno states and pledges to do all that is possible to quickly re-erect the towers to restore power supply to the affected areas.
“We are once again making an urgent appeal to host communities to collaborate with TCN in the fight against vandalism and the necessary preservation of power infrastructures nationwide, which is our collective asset,” the power firm stated.
The company has repeatedly complained of the vandalism of its towers and how such activities were affecting power supply nationwide.
It has also allocated billions of naira for the repairs and reinstallation of many of these lines, stressing that these funds should have been deployed to other areas.
