Power outage rocked National Assembly on Monday while the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, was interacting with senators at the investigative hearing on “the need to halt the increase in the price of electricity” organised by the Senate Committee on Power.
Adelabu was summoned by the Senate to speak on the recent tariff and justify the increase.
Although power was restored in less than five minutes, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Eyinnaya Abaribe, said that the minister’s statement about stable electricity in the country was implicative.
He said, “You see what just happened. This is what we all experience. We the Senators experience it too and I am sure even the President does experience it at the Villa, just that he cannot speak out like we are.”
It was earlier reported that on April 3, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission had approved an increase of 340% in electricity tariff for customers under the Band A classification. According to the NERC’s Vice Chairman, Musliu Oseni, Band A, customers will begin to pay N225 kilowatt per hour from the current N66.
According to NERC, B and A customers are those who enjoy 20 hours of electricity supply daily.
Further checks revealed that customers under this classification represent 15 per cent of the 12 million electricity customers in Nigeria.
