UCH medical students protest 100-day power outage

…As power minister, CMD holds crucial meeting

A good number of medical students of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, on Monday protested at the office of the Chief Medical Director of the institution over the non-availability of power and water.

The first Nigeria’s teaching hospital has been in darkness since October 2024, which makes it over 100 days this Monday.

The students who displayed placards with different inscriptions such as, “No light, no water.” +100 Days of Darkness: Save UCH; Save ABH Hall; Save Falade Hall; Give Us Light; This Is Not How We Want To Live; Medical School Is Hard Enough- Give Us Light; All We Are Saying, Give Us Light stated that they would continue to protest until their demands are met.

This is coming as Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, and Jesse Otegbayo, CMD are holding a meeting with stakeholders at the hospital to find solution to the disconnection of institution and epileptic power supply.

Read also: We’re working on alternative, sustainable power supply – UCH

Samson Samuel, a former President of the Students Union Government, University of Ibadan, and Olamide Omotunde, former Speaker of UI who are currently medical students stated they had several meetings with the management of institution saying that nothing was done to restore electricity in the halls.

While appealing to the government to intervene in the situation, the students stated, “We protested on January 26, 2025, to the State and Federal Secretariats, Agodi, Ibadan, with the hope that the management would restore it but up till now, nothing has been done. And that’s why we decided after 100 days to protest over non-availability of power.”

The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, had in March and early October 2024 disconnected power supply at the hospital due to accumulated debts while the distribution company also for the third time in a year disconnected power supply at UCH on October 26, 2024.