My Thoughts Have No Filter by Abdul’Azeez Bello
WhatsApp: 0805 113 0075 | omobolajibello@gmail.com
Someone Is Out There Dismantling Your Light. And It Is Not NEPA This Time.
We Nigerians have a long and complicated relationship with darkness.
We have blamed NEPA. We have blamed the power distribution companies. We have blamed the government. We have blamed past administrations, current administrations and administrations that have not even been elected yet. We have blamed the naira. We have blamed the oil companies. We have blamed everything and everyone with such consistency and creativity that blaming has practically become a national sport.
But right now, today, in the middle of 2026, there is a very specific group of people responsible for a very specific portion of our darkness. And they are not in Abuja. They are not in a ministry. They are not wearing suits or giving press conferences.
They are in the bush with spanners, hacksaws and pickup trucks. Quietly dismantling the towers that carry electricity across this country. Selling the steel for scrap. Pocketing a few thousand naira. And leaving millions of Nigerians without power while they go home and sleep peacefully.
At least 20 transmission towers were vandalised between January and August 2026, with four suspects arrested and one death recorded. And that is just the 2026 count. In 2025, the Transmission Company of Nigeria recorded 131 cases of infrastructure vandalism across its network between January and November alone. dailytrustEsi-africa
One hundred and thirty one times in eleven months. More than once every three days. Someone was out there with tools, dismantling the backbone of Nigeria’s electricity system, and we are still debating whether to call it what it actually is.
Economic treason.
What Exactly Are These People Doing? Let Me Explain It Slowly.
For those who are not clear on exactly what is happening, let me paint the picture.
Nigeria’s national electricity grid is held together by transmission towers. Giant steel structures that carry high voltage power lines across hundreds of kilometres, from where electricity is generated to where you live and work. These towers are not decoration. They are the road on which your electricity travels. Without them, the power goes nowhere.
Now imagine someone deciding that those towers look like they have some valuable scrap metal in them. So they go out at night or in quiet hours, unbolt the structural bracing members that hold the towers together, strip them down piece by piece and sell the steel to an illicit scrap metal dealer who does not ask too many questions.
What happens next? The tower loses its structural integrity. It wobbles. It leans. Eventually it falls. And when it falls, the transmission line it was holding goes down with it. The power that was travelling on that line stops. The communities, businesses and hospitals at the other end of that line go dark.
The continued destruction of transmission facilities is placing additional financial pressure on the Transmission Company of Nigeria, which must redirect funds earmarked for grid expansion and other critical projects towards repairing damaged infrastructure. Rather than using available resources to strengthen and expand the transmission network, TCN is forced to spend heavily restoring towers and other facilities that would otherwise remain operational. Legit.ng
In other words, the money that was supposed to build new transmission lines to bring electricity to more Nigerians is now being spent rebuilding towers that were already working, that were already carrying power, that only stopped because somebody needed to buy second-hand alcohol with the scrap money.
If that does not make you genuinely angry, check your pulse.
The Cases That Should Shame Every Nigerian Who Has Ever Complained About Light
Let me walk you through what has actually been happening because the cases are not abstract. They are specific, documented and deeply infuriating.
On August 8, 2026, a transmission tower along the 330kV Ughelli-Benin transmission line collapsed following vandalism. When TCN’s patrol team traced the fault to Tower 101, they found the body of a suspected vandal crushed between the tower members. dailytrust
A man went out to steal from a tower. The tower fell on him. He died. And somewhere in Nigeria, the lights went off again, and someone turned on their generator and started complaining about fuel prices.
On August 9, 2026, vandals removed critical structural bracing members from five towers along the Ikot Abasi-Eket 132kV Double Circuit Transmission Line in a southern state, causing all five towers to collapse simultaneously. Seven more towers were assessed to be at risk. TheNigeriaLawyer
Five towers at once. Not one. Five. In one operation. This was not opportunistic scavenging. This was an organised, coordinated attack on national infrastructure.
On July 29, police arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism of six towers along a 330kV transmission line in the northeast. The affected towers were stripped of critical bracing members, with an estimated 130 pieces of tower members removed and carted away. dailytrust
130 pieces. Someone counted. Someone loaded. Someone transported. And at every step of that operation, they knew exactly what they were doing and they did not stop.
In May 2026, armed men invaded a transmission substation in the southwest region, forcefully gained access to the control room and held all personnel on duty hostage at gunpoint before vandalising the facility. Thefact
This one is not even vandalism anymore. This is armed robbery of a national electricity facility. Workers held at gunpoint. In a power substation. In Nigeria. In 2026.
The financial toll has been steep. The Federal Government spent about N8.8 billion repairing vandalised transmission towers in 2025 alone, a figure that underscores how vandalism translates directly into public expenditure that would otherwise fund expansion or maintenance of the grid. LEADERSHIP Newspapers
Eight point eight billion naira. On repairs. Of towers that did not need to be repaired until someone decided to dismantle them for scrap.
To the Vandals: A Direct Message With Love
I want to address the vandals directly now. And I am going to be very clear.
You are not stealing from a company. You are not stealing from the government. You are not cleverly outwitting a faceless institution. You are stealing from your neighbour. From the woman who needs electricity to run her small cold room business. From the student who needs light to read at night. From the hospital whose equipment runs on the power you just interrupted. From the child whose breathing machine requires an uninterrupted power supply.
Every tower you bring down is a vote against your own community. Every bracing member you sell to a scrap dealer for a few thousand naira is a bill you are sending to millions of Nigerians who did nothing to you.
And here is the thing about electricity infrastructure. It is not like stealing a goat. If you steal a goat, the owner suffers. If you steal from a transmission tower, everyone within hundreds of kilometres of that transmission line suffers together. The mechanic. The pharmacist. The petty trader. The teacher. The small child who just wanted to watch cartoons before bed.
You are stealing from all of them. At once. For scrap money.
A suspected vandal died instantly after being electrocuted while attempting to dismantle a transmission tower in 2025, highlighting both the desperation of vandals and the deadly risks associated with tampering with high-voltage installations. Blueprint Newspapers Limited
The towers will kill you. The electricity running through them does not negotiate. It does not care how desperate you are or how much you need the money. It will end you where you stand. And when you are gone, the tower will still need to be repaired, the community will still be in darkness and your family will be left to explain why you died stealing steel from a national electricity structure.
It is not worth it. For any amount of money. It is simply not worth it.
Government, This Is Your Fight Too. Show Up for It.
Now to the other side of this conversation.
The Managing Director of TCN described vandalism as one of the most persistent challenges facing the power sector, stating that protecting the transmission network is a matter of national security and requires stronger collaboration among security agencies, host communities, government institutions, and other stakeholders. dailytrust
National security. Those are the right words. We agree completely. The problem is that national security language has been applied to this issue for years while the vandalism has continued more than once every three days.
Vandalism cases have been minimised to about 40 in 2026, down sharply from the 276 recorded between 2022 and 2025, with credit going to the support of communities and the proactiveness of TCN staff. Thefact
Progress is real and it deserves to be acknowledged. The number is coming down. Community engagement is working. The collaboration between TCN and local vigilante groups is producing results. These are genuine wins and they matter.
But forty cases is still forty too many. Forty attacks on national infrastructure. Forty sets of Nigerians who lost power because someone went out with a spanner.
The government must move from managing this problem to ending it. And that requires a few things that are not yet happening at the scale they need to happen.
Communities Are the Real Heroes Here
Let us stop and appreciate something that does not get enough recognition in Nigerian public discourse.
Local vigilantes and youths in communities along transmission lines have been apprehending suspected vandals and protecting critical infrastructure, with multiple arrests made by community members acting on tip-offs. Blueprint Newspapers Limited
Ordinary Nigerians. Not police. Not military. Not a government agency with a budget and a fleet of vehicles. Ordinary community members who decided that the towers in their neighbourhood belong to all of them and that they would not allow them to be destroyed.
This is patriotism. Quiet, unglamorous, unannounced patriotism. The kind that does not make the front page but keeps the lights on.
A team of community vigilantes arrested a suspected vandal attempting to vandalise a transmission tower in August 2026, catching him in the act of loosening the tower base bracing. dailytrust
Caught in the act. By neighbours who were paying attention. This is what Nigeria looks like when citizens decide to own their country rather than simply complain about it.
That energy must be encouraged, supported and expanded. Not left to operate informally on goodwill alone.
The Way Forward
This problem has solutions. Real ones. They just require commitment rather than press releases.
Treat transmission tower vandalism as economic terrorism, not petty theft. There is a need for effective legal and regulatory frameworks that impose appropriate penalties on those who vandalise critical national infrastructure. A man who sells scrap from a transmission tower for thirty thousand naira should face consequences proportional to the billions his action costs the country, not a brief detention and a warning. dailytrust
Regulate and track the scrap metal market aggressively. Vandals do not steal tower members for decoration. They sell them. The buyers are identifiable. The dealers are operating in locations that are known. A serious crackdown on illicit scrap metal purchasing that targets buyers as aggressively as sellers would immediately reduce the market for stolen transmission components. No buyer, no incentive.
Formalise and fund community protection networks. The vigilante groups protecting transmission towers are doing national security work on community goodwill. They deserve formal recognition, basic equipment and a clear reporting structure connected to TCN and security agencies. Reward the communities that protect infrastructure. Make protection pay better than vandalism.
Increase surveillance along transmission corridors. Nigeria in 2026 has access to drone technology, CCTV systems and mobile monitoring tools that can cover transmission corridors at a fraction of the cost of repairing a collapsed tower. The N8.8 billion spent on repairs in 2025 could fund years of surveillance infrastructure that would make future attacks significantly harder to execute without detection.
Invest in public education at the community level. Many people in communities along transmission lines do not fully understand what those towers do or what it costs when they are damaged. TCN’s sensitisation programmes are working and the numbers show it. Scale them up. Take them to every community along every transmission corridor in Nigeria. Make every Nigerian understand that these towers are their property and their light depends on them.
The Verdict
Nigeria is fighting for its electricity future on multiple fronts simultaneously.
We are fighting an infrastructure deficit that took decades to create. We are fighting a funding gap that requires billions to close. We are fighting an investment climate that makes power sector reform slow and difficult.
And in the middle of all of that, while engineers are working and government is planning and communities are hoping, a group of people are out there in the bush with hacksaws, systematically dismantling the progress tower by tower, bracing member by bracing member, for scrap money.
The Nigerian Independent System Operator stated the electricity market is losing N8 billion to transmission loss monthly, with vandalism contributing significantly to those losses. Legit.ng
Eight billion naira a month. That is the price Nigeria is paying for vandalism of its own electricity infrastructure. Every month.
That money belongs to Nigeria’s future. It belongs to the expansion projects that would bring electricity to communities that have never had it. It belongs to the upgrades that would stabilise the grid and reduce the blackouts that every Nigerian knows by name.
Instead it is going into repairs. Of towers. That were working. Until someone decided they needed the steel more than Nigeria needed the light.
To the communities protecting these towers: thank you. Keep going. Your country is watching and your country is grateful.
To the government: the legal frameworks, the surveillance, the community support structures, the scrap metal regulation, none of it is optional. Nigeria cannot afford for this to remain a problem we manage while it costs us eight billion naira every single month.
And to the vandals: the tower does not know your name. The electricity does not know your name. But Nigeria is starting to know your face. And the consequences are coming to find you.
Abdul’Azeez Bello writes from the streets of Nigeria, where the truth is always louder than the headlines.
My Thoughts Have No Filter.
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