By Ayeotan Shola
The senate meeting was disrupted yesterday as incessant power outages put their momentous probe of the Power sector on hold.
The outages, which occurred eight times within four hours, forced the committee to hurriedly bring the sitting to a close.
The first power failure happened around 2.30 p.m. when the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, was speaking on behalf of the various electricity generating and distributing companies.
The first outage lasted for 10 minutes, the second 14 minutes, the third five minutes, the fourth, eight minutes and the fifth five minutes. The sixth, seventh and eight outages lasted for 12 minutes.
Many members of the committee said they suspected sabotage.
When the outage became irritating, a member of the committee rushed out to fetch candles to light the room.
Another brought two rechargeable lamps from his office to illuminate the table where the committee members sat. A third member brought two long touch lights.
The session was soon turned into a “bedroom conversation” between the senators and their invitees as the microphones malfunctioned due to lack of power.
Committee Chairman Senator Abubakar Kyari, who showed signs of embarrassment, told reporters that the power outage would be investigated.
Kyari said: “We will investigate the incident. We will find out whether it was an act of sabotage.”
Kyari added that the power failure further underscored the relevance of the committee “at this critical time but we shall investigate whether it deliberate or not”.
He faulted newspaper reports of the first day of the panel’s sitting, which said N2.740 trillion was spent on the sector since 1999.
Source: The Nation
