The National Universities Commission (NUC) has taken action to give energy solutions to Nigerian institutions, which the commission claims is a critical need in the country’s university system.
Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, the executive secretary of NUC, noted that a gas-powered energy system would be ideal for the university system. As a result, they met to discuss how to ensure the availability of alternative energy sources in Nigerian universities.
He pointed out that due to the epileptic power supply that affects the smooth operation of the institutions in most of the nation, there is a need to address the energy problem in Nigerian universities.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that the meeting was held with a delegation led by the executive director of MDGIF, Mansur Kuliya.
Professor Rasheed added that energy constituted a critical component of running a university and that to live in the uncertainty of having light constantly was something we had forcefully embraced in the nation’s university campuses over the past decades.
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He told the delegation that when he was a student, it was rare for light to be taken, adding that today one could not guarantee when the light would be available in a semester.
He noted that so many initiatives and experiments had been undertaken over the past few years with the most recent one being the RED intervention for alternative power (solar) besides plants in Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ife, and University of Lagos (UNILAG).
He disclosed that these were the only ones with the proposed gas power plant, stressing that the other universities involved were solar-driven.
The NUC boss said that the government had spent billions of naira to put power in the nation’s universities campuses, but the problem had always been compounded.
He cited the example of the Bayero University Kano (BUK) which installed one centralized solar plant of 3.6 KVA and made it an integrated one with diesel, national grid, and solar power with 2,160 batteries.
He said that the vice-chancellor of the institution informed him that he needed N900m to replace the batteries for optimal usage.
Story adapted from Leadership
