Every day for the past three weeks, the jarring sound of two industrial generators, loud enough to knock someone out of deep thought, has been welcoming the students of the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) to campus.

This college of medicine, which boasts as the “Pride of LASU”, has been forced to rely on these generators to manage consecutive weeks of power outages.

While the clinics in this college of medicine enjoy electricity powered by these generators during the day, students who live in the hotels only have access to electricity four hours a day; two hours in the morning between 5 am and 7 am, and two hours at night between 8 pm and 11 pm.

A compartment housing the generators.

Chidi Nwankwo (not real name), a LASUCOM student, told EQ on Thursday that the power situation was negatively impacting students’ well-being.

He said that the living conditions of students have significantly deteriorated in this blackout.

“The living conditions in our hostels are severely impacting students’ well-being. We are forced to endure excessive heat due to electricity instability. The issue of overcrowding in our hostels has made the heat even worse,” said Nwankwo.

“The generator schedule, which has been limited to 8 pm to 11 pm and 5 am to 7 am, has restricted how often we get to cook as we only use electric cookers here. We now have to struggle to get space to cook in the kitchen when the generator is on due to the limit on the number of people that can cook at the same time.”

The privilege to cook when they want to is not the only thing that the blackout has taken from these students. The blackout has also denied them the privilege of learning in a conducive environment.

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Nwankwo and other students now have to endure long lectures in excessive heat.

When EQ visited LASUCOM on Thursday, another student who pleaded anonymity said that students who read at night on campus can no longer indulge in night studies. The classrooms have become hot and stuffy.

LASUCOM’s Entrance,

Although this student who is in his second year cannot remember when the blackout began, he told EQ that he had noticed that there had been no electricity on campus for the past two weeks.

“I don’t stay on campus. I can not really say when this issue started but I have noticed that we have not had electricity for the past two weeks. I can’t say I am really affected by this because I live off-campus but students who want to read at night are badly affected because there is no electricity to read,” he told EQ on Thursday.

“The classrooms have also become hot and stuffy because there is no electricity to power the fans.”

When EQ asked if the jarring sound of the generators was making it difficult for students to pay attention during lectures, the second-year medical student said it depended on the proximity of the lecture room to the generator.

In another breath, he added, “There are barely classrooms where the generators are.”

Nwankwo, who stays on campus, shared insights on how learning has taken an ugly turn following this blackout.

“The unstable electricity not only affects our hostels but the classrooms as well. Our lecture rooms lack power supply at essential times, forcing administrators to rotate which building gets light and what time they get it because of the high cost of diesel. This has made it impossible to provide electricity for all the buildings at the same time,” said Nwankwo.

“The unstable power supply affects the water supply in our hostels, particularly for students on higher floors. When they start pumping water by 8 pm, it does not get to the third floor until 10 pm and it is usually the first to run out.

“Our examination preparation and overall academic performance are affected, as we have to study in the dark. Imagine struggling to get space cook in the kitchen and then having to prepare for an in-course or end-of-posting exam under these challenging conditions.”

‘FAULTY INDEPENDENT POWER PLANT’

EQ learnt that this was not the first time a blackout would linger for this long in LASUCOM.

Nwankwo told EQ that whenever this happened, the management hardly said anything about the power challenge.

“The issue has been on and off for a while since I have been in this school. The school management hardly says anything about it, but this time they sent a broadcast message telling us the issue was not from their end,” Nwankwo said.

In a broadcast message shared on groups for students of LASUCOM on WhatsApp, Anthony Olawale, the welfare director of the Lagos State University Medical Students Association (LASUMSA), told the students that the blackout was as a result of a fault in the Independent Power Plant (IPP) which served as the college of medicine’s main source of power.

“The Independent Power Plant (IPP) which serves as our main source of power has been down due to a lack of gas supply and other technical challenges at the plant,” the message read in part.

Olawale added that the directors of the power plant had set a date with government officials to discuss the electricity situation and find a solution to the blackout.

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While the welfare director believes that the issue will be resolved soon, Nwankwo doesn’t share this optimism.

“Even if the light is fixed today, I am pretty sure it won’t last a month before it goes off again. It has been on and off like that,” said Nwankwo.

EQ sent an email to LASUCOM on Tuesday for comments Their response to EQ’s email did not answer the questions asked.

“Mail received,” LASUCOM wrote EQ on Wednesday.

LASUCOM is not the only college of medicine experiencing a power outage in recent times. The University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan has endured a two-week blackout after the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) disconnected its power supply because it had accumulated a significant debt in electricity charges.
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