Power outage: Masaka residents count loses, demand action from AEDC

By Chris Ochayi

ABUJA: The prolonged power outage in Masaka, a highbrow town in Nasarawa State, has taken a devastating dimension on the residents, who are calling on the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, to take urgent steps to restore electricity to the area.

The over three months of complete darkness in Masaka has brought untold hardship on the residents who are counting loses both in the deaths of loved ones and businesses.

Masaka an area under the AEDC franchise has been plunged into darkness since April 2025 and the situation has remained unattended to till date.

The power situation has forced the hospitals in the town to reject patients with serious health condition, especially, surgical operations and childbirths, that might require power supply to be successfully carried out.

The early early rains in April according to source pulled down over a hundred poles, which he noted the AEDC lacks the capacity to fix them.

Speaking on the outage, a resident and a laboratory operator, Mr Simon Alome, revealed poles fell between Gora Town and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp near Keffi.

He said the area unfortunately is non-residential and so nobody takes responsibility to fix the poles, adding, “The fixing of the poles is not a direct responsibility of the  esidents.Otherwise, they would have contributed money, as usual, to fix them.

“When the storm felled the poles, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) quickly detached their cables from the poles, an indication that the situation will remain for a long time” he said.

Alome lamented that he is using a generator for all his operations and the extra cost is passed on to his patients.

“Ordinarily, a wildal test would cost N3,500 but because of the cost of fuel we are now charging our patients N5000. The same goes to other tests” he lamented

Another resident, Madam Patience Nana, a resident and a coldroom operator, has not operated since April this year, because the fish she was preserving for fish sellers went bad due to total power outage.

“I have not operated the coldroom for months now because of total blackout orchestrated by AEDC.
“The last business I did was a complete loss because people’s goods went bad. I cannot continue to preserve my goods with generators because of the cost of fuel. My customers complain when I pass on the cost to them.

“They complain that my business is costly and they can no longer patronise me. I also live in Masaka and I can tell you for free that the situation has been hellish. Ironically, the last bill they brought to us for May was N19,000 for each house on estimated billing system.

“When we complained they told us that it was a technical glitch which would be corrected in the subsequent bills.
That was before the total blackout in April” she added..

Recall the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adekola Adelabu recently discovered that the weakest link in the chain are the Distribution Companies, DISCOs.

Adelabu said, the situation is like this because the DISCOs have refused to invest in the industry.

He said despite tariff adjustments that boosted market liquidity by 70 per cent—raising sector revenue from ₦1 trillion in 2023 to ₦1.7 trillion in 2024—the distribution segment remains the weakest link.

Meanwhile, when contacted, the AEDC’s spokesperson, Mrs Adefisanyo Akinsanya, who however feigned ignorance of incident, promised to get back which she never did until press time..