By Calista Oyeoba / Posted December 3, 2024
Premier northern institution, the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria has announced that the institution and surrounding communities have been disconnected from the national power distribution due to an outstanding debt owed to the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC).
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A statement by the Head of Corporate Communication of KEDC, Abdulazeez Abdullahi, confirmed the disconnection.
This has led to the interruption of academic activities in the school, as the institution has not been able to pay the outstanding debt owed to the utility company, which consequently threw the University into darkness for over 18 months.
An ABU bulletin read, “This is to inform members of the University community that Ahmadu Bello University has been disconnected from the power system by Kaduna Electric. It has been off the grid since yesterday (Thursday, 28th November, 2024) evening following the institution’s inability to pay the accumulated electricity bills.
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It’s worth noting that this issue is not new, as the university has been struggling to pay its electricity bills for some time now. In fact, the KEDC had previously issued a disconnection notice to the university due to its outstanding debt.
Some have argued that the university’s management is to blame for the situation, while others have pointed out that the issue is more complex and involves a range of factors.
“The University has been facing difficulty in footing the monthly electricity bills following increase in electricity tariffs early this year. ABU has been able to pay the sum of over one billion Naira electricity bills to the company since January this year, in addition to huge amount of money expended for diesel. This is even at the expense of the critical statutory functions of the University.”
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The university management also appealed to members of the university community for their understanding, saying efforts were being made to resolve the matter.