Students of the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University (IBBU), Lapai, Niger State, have lamented that lack of power supply due to persistent vandalisation of electricity facilities in their host community and environs was affecting their preparations for the ongoing first semester examinations.
The students told City and Crime that the continued vandalisation of power cables and transformers that supplied power to Lapai town and environs had nearly brought their academic activities and social life to a standstill, noting that they found it difficult to even charge their phones.
A student, Maryam Yahaya, told our correspondent that, “We go to the school library to charge our phones with solar power because there’s no light in the university. The university management only powers the generator at night, and sometimes it doesn’t last more than an hour or two.”
Another student, who didn’t want her name mentioned, said, “We use torchlights to read at night. Most of the time we find it difficult to read.”
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It was learnt that some parents also lamented that they hardly contacted their children in school as their lines were always off.
City & Crime gathered that as the problem persists, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) hardly deploys staff in Lapai, Bida and Agaie LGAs thereby heightening concerns among residents as to when they will get power restored.
When contacted on telephone about the situation, the Project Manager of AEDC in Lapai, Engr Adogu Unwaha, said that until stakeholders, including security agencies, assisted in addressing the problem, there was nothing much they could do.
“They are vandalising the main line that connects Lapai town and environs as well as transformers. The main line has been vandalised for over 30 times in the last one year, while 20 transformers have been vandalised. All the security agencies, especially the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), are aware of this problem.”
On the alleged non-deployment of staff to the three LGAs, Engr Unwaha said, “We don’t want the staff in Lapai to stay redundant without doing anything. That’s why the management said they should be deployed pending when the problem is solved, because we have written to our management in Abuja to bring us new cables.
“This is not the first or second time they are bringing us cables, and they still vandalised them. What I am saying is not just to put the new cables; what can we do to forestall this incessant vandalisation? A day after Sallah, we fixed these lines but they vanadalised them after three days.”
AEDC’s spokesman of the Niger Region, Adamu Pele, also told our correspondent that the company had met with the state’s Commissioner of Police (CP) to assist in putting an end to the vandalisation of electricity facilities, appealing to communities from Paiko to Lapai to assist in protecting the facilities.
