Education

High electricity tariff crushing Nigerian public varsities

Published by Tope Fakinlede on July 21st, 2024.

High electricity tariff crushing Nigerian public varsities

Institutions resort to power rationing, students kick

…Wear your thinking caps – Observers tell vice chancellors

The high electricity tariff being charged by the electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) is now affecting normal academic activities in many public universities.

The students of the University of Ibadan (UI) last week protested the plan by the authorities to ration power.

The students of the University of Benin had earlier barricaded the federal highway causing untold hardship to travellers and other commuters over untold hardship they face over electric blackout on campus.

The Benin Electricity Distribution Company, (BEDC) had disconnected the university because of the disputed monthly bill of over N250 million.

This was coming ahead of the students’ first semester examination, hence the students took to the streets, blocking federal highway in protest to the power outage for about two weeks.

Public universities in Nigeria are groaning under the yoke of high tariffs thrust on them by electricity distribution companies, DisCoS.

Although the universities had managed to contain the monthly bills from their various DisCos, the recent tariff hike that has seen many of the institutions join the Band A may have worsened their headache.

The ongoing tariffs hike by electric distribution companies is poised to leave not less than 10 tertiary institutions with the highest budgets spending over N75 billion on electricity this year. The 10 universities have a combined budget of N247.6 billion for 2024.

The 10 public universities with the highest budgets for 2024 are the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, N36.6 billion; the University of Calabar, N29.5 billion; Ahmadu Bello University, N29. 2 billion; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, N26.3 billion; and the University of Benin, N24.2 billion

Others are the University of Ibadan N23.4 billion; the University of Maiduguri N22.3billion; University of Port Harcourt, N19.6billion; University of Lagos, N19. 4 billion, and Obafemi Awolowo University, N17.1billion.

Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, immediate past vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), speaking on the issue said that no Nigerian university, particularly a public one, can pay the current electricity costs imposed by the DisCos.

Ogundipe identified the high cost of electricity as one of the most pressing issues facing Nigerian institutions today, calling for urgent action to address the situation.

He said that in 2021 alone, UNILAG’s annual power bill soared to N1.7 billion, while the Federal Government’s total subsidy to the university which was not fully released

was only N150 million.