Power firm, tertiary institution feud over outage

Authorities of Federal College of Education, Okene, Kogi State and Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) are at loggerheads over power supply, especially a faulty 2.5MVA transformer that has resulted in a 42-day outage.

Amid rising cost of energy, the institution said the situation was posing a serious threat to academic activities.

The tertiary body, in a statement, yesterday, said while the damaged transformer has served for over 20 years, the outage had made lives unbearable with students forced students to stay at home.

The management insisted that supply remained sacrosanct for lighting, and pumping of water to hostels, offices, libraries and others.

While decrying the cost of running a diesel generator daily, the school appealed to the Federal Government to prevail on relevant quarters to replace the faulty transformer to avoid it faltering on mobilising graduates for the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

According to the management, AEDC generates between N3 and N5 million monthly from the institution and as such, should give priority to the school.

President, of Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Kola Olubiyo, who described the development as embarrassing, advised AEDC management to hasten procurement process and urgently replace the defective facility.

He said the management of the power firm should show through action that it is prepared for business in the Nigerian electricity market.

Confirming the development, AEDC said the organisation was working round the clock to resolve the issue.

It, however, noted that the challenge might last for 12 weeks owing to procurement bottlenecks, adding that installation benchmarks would be needed to restore power in the institution.