Seplat shut its gas plant for maintenance. Nobody had a real backup plan.

From yesterday through Sunday, Nigeria is running short on power. Not because of vandalism. Not because of a crisis. Because of scheduled maintenance.

Seplat Energy shut its gas production facilities Thursday for four days of routine work. Seven power plants depend on that supply, including Egbin, Nigeria's largest at 1,320MW. Also affected: Azura, Sapele, and Transcorp. The national grid operator confirmed 935MW of generation capacity offline. NNPC said it is engaging alternative suppliers. That is a polite way of saying there is no real backup.

Nigeria holds Africa's largest natural gas reserves. We export gas to Europe. Yet a single company's four-day maintenance schedule can knock nearly 1,000MW offline with no sufficient alternative ready to fill the gap.

This is what energy experts mean when they say Nigeria's power sector is built on a single point of failure. Gas arrives through one pipeline network. The network serves multiple plants. One supply disruption, scheduled or otherwise, cascades immediately into load shedding nationwide.

Your generator is running this weekend. It's not bad luck. It's architecture.

Full supply expected to resume February 16.