Minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu, has slammed Nigerians who indiscriminately leave their houses to go to work and other places with their refrigerators and air conditioners on.
Lamenting Nigerians’ culture of power consumption management due to its affordability in the country, the minister said, “A lot of people will come back from work, they want to have dinner, or they want to see their colleagues down the road, they switch on the AC for the room to be cooling before they come back.
“Some people will be going to work in the morning, a freezer that you left on for days, they will still leave it on when all the items in the freezer are frozen and 5, 6, 8 hours of their absence will not make it to defreeze, they will still leave it to be consuming power just because we are not paying enough.”
The minister disclosed this in Abuja on Friday while briefing journalists about the recent increase in electricity tariff by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The grandson of prominent First Republic politician, Adegoke Adelabu, who was raised with public funds, he said Nigerians lack consumption management because electricity is cheap in the country.
He was appointed a deputy governor, operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The minister said, “The bitter truth we all need to tell ourselves as Nigerians. A few people are just privileged to sit on the high table. We’re on the same level, we must be able to tell the truth to ourselves.
“We have all been overseas before; we know how conscious the power consumers are about electricity consumption,” he added.
The minister had also, in the briefing, asked Nigerians to expect more increase in electricity tariff of customers under other bands after the NERC increased that of Band A.
