By Jamiu Ganiyu
Residents of Ilesha metropolis area of Osun State have expressed their displeasure over the continued blackout which has put the ancient city to darkness for about sixty five (65) days now with no end in sight.
In a bid to understand the plight of the residents of the town, osun.life had an exclusive chat with some selected residents and stakeholders who bore their mind on the lingering power crisis in the city.
A 200L student of the Department of Political Science/English Language, College of Education, Ilesha, Aare Ridwan Olatoye, who also double as the Public Relations Officer, National Association of Nigerians Student Joint Campus Committee (NANS JCC), Osun State Axis, said the issue of the prolonged blackout has affected all aspect of their lives considering its importance to condusive living and academic activities.
In his words, the NANS JCC PRO said “most of us rely so much on electricity supply to cook using the electric cooker, but since there’s no light all these while, those who don’t have Gas cylinder have been buying Kerosene to power their stoves which is relatively too expensive”.
“We can hardly read at night again neither can we do our assignment because we can’t access the internet using our phones or laptops because there is no access to power to charge our devices”.
Olatoye further buttressed his narrative by saying dangerous animals now lurk the hostels because of the prolonged darkness.
In his own reaction, A former member of the House of Assembly who spoke under anonymity said “It is getting to a breaking point here, people are ready to go on a rampage but we are appealing to them so as not to trigger another gory scene”.
Another resident who spoke with our correspondent, Mr. Adepoju Akinleye Zoe, said the prolonged power outage has seriously affected many small scale businesses especially those who deal in cold drinks, frozen foods, and others.
In his words, Adepoju, said: “many small scale businesses have folded up while some others were struggling to remain in business”. We have some people who go to Osogbo, Ile-Ife, and other neighboring towns and cities to buy ice block in order to boost their sales”.
He further told osun.life that some residents who could not afford to endure the blackout have already moved out of Ilesha while some persons have developed various degree of sickness as a result of excessive heat over a long period of time.