The minister confirmed that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had identified the problems, and its engineers are already trying to fix them.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, on Monday briefed President Bola Tinubu on the lack of electricity in many parts of Northern Nigeria for over one week.
Mr Adelabu said he told the president about the cause of the problem.
"We discussed the root cause of this, which was basically due to vandalisation of the transmission lines of Shiroro-Kaduna line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the North," he said.
Last week, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said its Shiroro-Mando transmission line was damaged due to sabotage, causing a power outage in many northern states.
The minister confirmed that the TCN had identified the problems and that its engineers were already working to fix them.
"They already set out to fix this line. What they have asked for, which has been provided to them now, is the security cover of the National Security Adviser through the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Air Staff to enable them restore the damaged land. And we are optimistic that very soon this will be fully restored," he said.
Mr Adelabu's statements confirm earlier ones by the TCN which said it had gotten security guarantees to proceed with the repairs.
PREMIUM TIMES reports that some of the places where the damage occurred are communities where armed bandits operate. The bandits routinely kill and kidnap residents and travellers in such communities.
Mr Adelabu, who briefed journalists after his meeting with the president, said the long term solution of electricity to Northern Nigeria is localised solar plants.
"We believe that the most effective way of supplying uninterrupted, functional, stable and reliable electricity to the northern part of Nigeria is through our distributed power model, whereby each of the northern states will have an embedded utility, solar scale, solar source," he said.
"All the 20 states will be insulated and immune from each other, (we've) actually made progress in this as we have interested contractors and financiers that are ready to install 100 megawatts each for each of the 20 northern states, which is scalable to 50 megawatts at first, then upgraded to 100 megawatts."
Apart from vandalism of transmission infrastructures and distribution equipment, poor maintenance of electricity infrastructure has been one of the major causes of poor power supply in the country.
Speaking on Monday, Mr Adelabu explained that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has given approval for the ministry to upgrade the Shiroro-Kaduna transmission line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the northern part of the country.
"We already have approval for this. It is one of the oldest transmission lines that we have in Nigeria, and we believe that it requires an upgrade. And through the magnanimity of Mr president and the FEC, we got approval to fix the line on a permanent basis. Once this is done, I believe that power to the North will be more stable than we're experiencing right now," he added.
Speaking to the issue of the national grid, the minister noted that the country has a national grid whose transmission lines are weak.
"Let me tell you the truth of the matter is, we have old infrastructure. We have a national grid that is more than 50 years old. We have a national grid whose transmission lines are weak, the towers are falling, and the substations, the transformers, are old.
"So it's like you're having a rickety car. You'll be expecting breakdown once in a while. What we continue to do is to continue to manage the grid to prevent frequent occurrence of the grid disturbance until we're able to completely overhaul the grid itself. Then we'll have a reliable grid."
He further explained that the ministry is working on establishing what is called a super grid, which is a backup or optional grid.
If the national grid has a problem, he said there will be an alternative route through which power can be transmitted.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"That is what we are working on. Then lastly is the fact that the world has moved beyond having a centralised grid. Grid must be regionalised. We must have state grids so that each of the grids will be insulated from each other so that a problem in a particular line will not affect others. That is what we are working on. Until that is done, we believe that we'll keep managing what we have and reduce the frequent occurrence of the great disturbance," he said.
In recent years, the power sector has experienced many challenges in areas of electricity policy enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, transmission system constraints, and significant power sector planning shortfalls.
In November 2013, the federal government privatised all power generation and 11 distribution companies, with the government retaining the ownership of the transmission company. This was to improve efficiency in the sector.
However, since the privatisation, the grid has continued to collapse amid efforts to reposition the power sector.
