Osinbajo kept in darkness as event venue without back-up experiences power outage

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Sunday had a first hand experience of epileptic power outage being experienced in Niger State in recent times when power went off at the venue of an event for over five minutes.
The event was the 8th Minna Choral Society Annual Festival of Songs.
The event was barely up to 30 minutes when the light and sound went off, throwing the entire hall into bewilderment and bringing the celebration to a temporary halt.
The outage occurred when a lead Bass vocalist took to the stage and started his renditions.
Security agents that came with the Vice President and the State Governor, Alhaji Sani Bello, ran shelter skelter to protect Osinbajo and also see if the organizers could be assisted in restoring power.
Osinbajo’s wife, Dolapo; and former Minister of Information and member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prof. Jerry Gana, were some of the other important dignitaries at the event.
However, Governor Bello was not inside the hall while the power outage lasted.
He was said to have gone to observe his prayers.
Some of the dignitaries who spoke to our correspondent expressed disappointment over the embarrassment it may have caused the Vice President, blaming the organisers for relying solely on the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company as against the usual practice of getting diesel for the generator whenever there is an event at the Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi International Conference Centre in Minna.
It should be recalled that the Niger State Government had in September this year said it is negotiating with two companies from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to build an alternative power source in the state.
Governor Bello disclosed this when he received the Emir of Minna, Alhaji Umar Faruk, who paid him Sallah homage in Minna.
At a press briefing on August 12, the state government had threatened to stop the payment of electricity bill to the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company if power outages persist in the state.
Bello said the state, which hosts three hydro power generation stations with 1,600 mega watts capacity each, should not be experiencing such power outages.
He said the alternative means would be necessary following persistent power outage in the state, adding: “Having alternative power supply would guarantee steady electricity supply in the state.
“We have demanded from electricity generating companies to allocate additional 10 per cent electricity from the national grid to the state.
“That is yet to yield result.
“We can no longer wait, but to take appropriate action to seek other means of steady electricity supply to our people.
“We have started talks with two electricity companies based outside the country.
“We will start with Minna, the state capital, then it will cut across other local government areas of the state.
“Though the President is aware of our plight, we will try on our part pending when the 10 per cent additional allocation we are demanding will be allocated to us, we will look for alternative ways.”