President Ahmed Bola Tinubu has approved the connection of Universities and other tertiary institutions to the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), as a long term solution to the epileptic electricity supply in the tertiary institutions.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, told journalists at a press conference, in Abuja, at the weekend, that decision was in response to increasing lamentations of the tertiary institutions about the high cost of electricity.
Public institutions particularly tertiary institutions and hospitals have recently lamented the impact of subsidy removal on electricity and categorization of the electricity supply which resulted in high cost of electricity.
Some of the institutions lamented that they have been dumped in Band A category, thus making electricity less affordable for their daily operations.
The Minister said: “One of the biggest challenges facing tertiary institutions is the issue of power. The heads of the institutions are lamenting heavily about the high electricity bill they pay monthly.
“Last week, the Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos (UniLag) came with a complain of huge electricity bill for the last month, over N470 million. Similar complaints have been received from different other institutions.”
He said the Ministry was deeply concerned about the huge electricity bill, hence it sought for solutions, and had to even approached the Federal Executive Council (FEC) with the complain, and the President approved that the universities be connected to the CNG as alternative to the public power supply.
He explained that their vehicles, campuses and other facilities would be converted to CNG. “This will, expectedly, help to reduce the huge electricity bill being given to the schools.”
CNG is a gaseous fuel that provides more affordable alternatives to existing available fuel products, and it’s reported to be about 40 per cent cheaper than petrol in Nigeria, and with continued investments, it will become a significant part of our energy mix.