Unpaid bills: Power firms throw varsities into darkness
Some federal universities have suffered have been thrown into blackouts due to their failure to settle outstanding bills in favour of electricity distribution companies, investigations by Sunday PUNCH has revealed.
The blackouts, our correspondent learned, continued to linger despite efforts to ensure that the ivory towers benefit from uninterrupted power supply to ease learning for students.
Blackouts have remained a major problem, not just in universities, but across the entire Nigerian society, leaving in its trail unnecessary difficulties in the execution of simple tasks and grounding economic activities.
However, experts say electricity blackouts in institutions of higher learning pose greater challenges as they have stood in the way of learning, the conduct of groundbreaking research and the smooth running of all activities.
This has also led students to resort to unhealthy alternatives just to get by.
In 2021, in a move to sort out the lingering problem, the Federal Government introduced the Energising Education Programme to provide sustainable and clean power supply to 37 federal universities and seven university teaching hospitals across the country.
The project includes the provision of independent power plants, upgrading existing distribution infrastructure, street lighting to improve security within the campuses, as well as the development of a world class training centre on renewable energy for each university.
Being implemented by the Rural Electrification Agency and developed in phases, the first phase is expected to deliver 28.5 megawatts to nine federal universities and one university teaching hospital, using solar hybrid and/or gas-fired captive power plants.
According to the government, the first phase of the EEP will benefit 127,000 students and 28,000 staff members of universities, 4,700 staff members in teaching hospitals (including 819 doctors), power 2,850 streetlights, and result in the decommissioning of hundreds of generators.
Our correspondent’s findings revealed that the project had yet to bear fruits as universities are still battling with interrupted power supply.
A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof Toyin Ogundipe, towards the end of 2021, warned of possible blackouts in many of the higher institutions over the hike in electricity tariff by the power distribution companies.
Ogundipe said UNILAG used to pay monthly electricity charges of N61m when academic and non-academic activities were in full capacity and paid N62m for November 2020.
“During the total lockdown when there were no activities apart from the home use for workers living on campus, we were paying N32m on a monthly basis. But now without the students on campus, we were charged N62m for November. This implies that the amount may double when students are back on campus and activities resume fully. How can we afford that?,” he had stated.
The then vice-chancellor said he checked other universities and found out that the situation was the same, adding that there was hardly any university in the country that could afford to pay such exorbitant charges. Punch
