The Federal Government has once again intervened in the electricity crisis between the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) and the University Teaching Hospital (UCH) which has kept the nation’s premier health institutions in darkness for over 100 days.
In a recent meeting with the warring parties, Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Strategic Communications and Media Relations,
Bolaji Tunji, 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.
Recall that on Monday, February 10, the Minister met with the management of UCH and IBEDC to resolve the crisis.
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,” he noted.
