Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, has criticised Nigerians
who keep their freezers and air conditioners on when they are not home.
Adelabu, while addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday,
said Nigerians lack the culture of power consumption management due to its
affordability.
“The bitter truth we all need to tell ourselves as
Nigerians. A few people are just privileged to sit on the high table. We’re on
the same level, we must be able to tell the truth to ourselves,” 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.”
On Wednesday, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission
(NERC) approved an increase in electricity tariff for customers under the Band
A classifications.
The regulator said customers who receive 20 hours of
electricity supply daily will pay N225 per kilowatt (kW) from April 3.
The new rate is about triple the previous rate of N66 per
kilowatt (kW).
