By Stella Odueme
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has again intervened in the power crisis that has thrown many parts of Nigeria’s premier health institutions, the University Teaching Hospital (UCH) into darkness for over 100 days.
A press release on Tuesday said in a meeting held with representatives of the University of Ibadan, the College of Medicine, the UCH, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) and technical engineers from both sides on Monday, February 17, the Minister, who was represented by Bolaji Tunji, the Special Adviser, Strategic Communications and Media Relations, directed IBEDC to restore power to the College of Medicine and the halls of residence within the teaching hospital premises that had continued to be in darkness after the earlier meeting.
The Minister had on Monday, had met with the management of UCH and IBEDC to resolve the crisis that has put the institution in darkness for 102 days.
The aftermath of that meeting led to restoration of power to the Clinical services section of UCH, while IBEDC said it was awaiting further guidance from UCH management on the next steps in restoring power to additional sections of the hospital.
The Minister’s directives came in view of the inability of the UCH management and the College of medicine to resolve the payment modalities and separation of assets due to the interconnectivity of the two entities.
As part of Monday’s resolution, the clinical area will now be solely connected to a new transformer before the end of the week while another transformer would be installed to serve the College of Medicine.
The Minister had noted that the crises was a customer – vendor issue which has nothing to do with the Federal government.
“Let me tell you that this is not the first time this crisis will be coming up. It was not a crisis that was initiated by the federal government or which the federal government was speaking to. It was a customer-vendor relationship issue between UCH and IBEDC. We are only intervening as the parents of this institution, and we are not happy that it has been in darkness for so long”.
