Activities in government offices, health facilities and other areas in Benin City, the Edo State capital, have been grounded for days as a result of non-availability of power supply.
Investigations revealed that the power outage was as a result of the non-supply of gas to the Ossiomo power company by its supplier, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, a subsidiary of the NNPCL.
INFO DAILY reports that Ossiomo power company has been the sole supplier of electricity to government buildings; street lights; some private homes; courts; secretariat of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Edo State council; the Edo State Industrial Hub where several micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) operate, etc.
Speaking, some of the operators in the Industrial Hub lamented that have lost fortune because of of the power outage which entered its fourth day on Friday.
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A dealer in frozen food at the Industrial hub told journalists that “I have lost so much running into millions of naira. We were forced to bury our frozen products that had become unfrozen and were rotting away because we depended on this Ossiomo light.”
Meanwhile, It was gathered that surgeries were stopped at the Edo State government-owned health facilities including the Edo State Specialist Hospital and others to avoid deaths. Activities in primary healthcare centres were grounded as well.
At the secretariat of the NUJ popularly known as Press Centre, there was was anxiety as the place was out of water supply which led to the leadership locking all bathrooms and toilets in the complex.
Journalists were stranded as many of them lamented that their phones and laptops were out of power, while some of them were sighted trooping to a nearby hotel to power their tools in order to file the reports.
Contacted, a staff of Ossiomo power company laid the blame at the feet of the gas supplier, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, a subsidiary of the NNPCL, just as he questioned the competence of some of the personnel there.
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He said: “We are not suspecting sabotage though, but the situation is that we have different oil mining licenses in this country supplying gas. Right now, the biggest one is OML 34 in Oben operated by Seplat, compare the performance of Seplat at Oben and the performance of NPDC at Ologbo, the gas is there, the oil is there, the resources are there, it is just the challenge of who is managing the resources, maintain and operating them.
“For example, we had a challenge in one of our substations and NPDC brought archaic materials that put everybody at risk, so we had to buy the equipment which is not our role. This has been going on for four days, and if you ask them, they won’t even tell you, but I know it has to do with competence.”
A visit to the NPDC headquarters, Benin, a senior personnel in the operations department said he cannot speak officially for the company.
He said: “I have been able to reach the engineer who is working to fix the problem and he assured the issue will be resolved before Sunday.”