Victor EzejaFormer Nigerian lawmaker Senator Shehu Sani has berated the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, over his comments that Nigerians leave their refrigerators and air conditioners on for days because they don’t pay much for electricity supply.
The minister made the comment during ministerial press briefing on the state of Nigeria’s power sector held on Thursday in Abuja.
He said Nigerians are not conscious in the consumption of electricity because it is cheap.
He said: “We don’t have the culture of consumption management in this country in terms of power, just of the cheapness of the tariff we pay for power.
“A lot of people will come back from work, they want to have dinner, or they want to see their colleagues down the road, they switch on the AC for the room to be cooling before they come back.
“Some people will be going to work in the morning, a freezer that you left on for days, they will still leave it on when all the items in the freezer are frozen and 5, 6, 8 hours of their absence will not make it to defreeze, they will still leave it to be consuming power just because we are not paying enough.
“We have all been overseas before; we know how conscious the power consumers are about electricity consumption.”
The comment generated a lot of reactions from many Nigerians on social media. Some called for his resignation.
Sani considered the power minister’s comment very conscending, saying it amounts to telling Nigerians not have refrigerator in their homes.
“Telling Nigerians to switch off their refrigerators is simply telling them not to have refrigerators in their homes. Anyway, we once had an Agric minister who said N30 is enough for a meal,” Sani wrote on his X handle.
Prime Business Africa recalls that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on Wednesday approved the increase of electricity tariff for customers on Band A.
NERC said the Band A customers who receive about 20 hours of electricity will now pay ₦225 per kilowatts hour.
The tarrif rate increased by almost 250 per cent from the previous rate of N66kwh.
The minister said the rate hike would address the issue of liquidity in the power sector.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
