Lagosians lament poor power supply, outrageous bills

Adekunle Dada

The epileptic nature of electricity supply in Nigeria has generated a lot of public outcry in the past two decades. But the appointment of Babatunde Fashola as Minister of Power, Works and Housing brought so much hope to Nigerians considering his performance as Lagos State governor between 2007-2015.

The expected Midas touch and the 7,000 megawatts power generated so far have, however, not translated to constant power supply to homes, offices and factories in Nigeria.

Electricity supply in many parts of Lagos presents different pictures. In some areas, there is relative improvement while others are yet to see any improvement.

Binta, a resident of Igando has sweet words to say about PHCN and their services in terms of power supply. She said power supply has improved in her area.

“Our light has improved, we do have like 15 hours a day. But some houses in the neighbourhood said their bill is too much and PHCN reduced it to about 9/10 hours. We are given a bill of N8,000 in a building of 4 flats. At present we enjoy 9 or 10 hours of electricity a day”.

For Ifeanyi, a resident of Iyana – Isashi, power supply has been erratic and there is no sign that it will get better in future.

“In 24 hours, we can boast of 5 to 6 hours supply of power but it’s not steady.
Then our bill for a month is N18,000 for a building of 3 flats. So I pay N6,000 monthly for power that i don’t enjoy,” he stated.

The situation is not different in Alagbado as Micheal, a resident at Kola told PMNEWS that the area received power supply for about 8 hours on a daily basis. He said there is still no positive change in electricity supply.

“We enjoy electricity for barely 8 hours everyday. We use prepaid meter. It was compulsory for every house in my area. That’s what Fashola said. The prepaid meter was given to us free, we didn’t pay for it”.

Sola, a resident of Ebute Meta enjoys eight hours of electricity daily. He hasn’t seen any improvement yet and can only hope for better days ahead.

“Eight hours of power is what i enjoy in my house here in Ebute Meta. The monthly bill is N17,000 upward. This month, we received a bill of N18,000. Sometime it runs into more than N20,000 for four flats,” he said.