Students of the University of Benin took to the streets on Wednesday, effectively shutting down the busy Benin-Ore highway to protest against a persistent power outage that has crippled campus activities for weeks, just two weeks before their first semester examinations.<\/p>\n
The university campus has been plunged into darkness following a dispute with the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) over a drastic increase in electricity charges. Reports indicate that the monthly bill escalated from approximately N80 million to between N200 and N280 million, prompting the institution to resort to limited generator use and rationing power across campuses and hostels.<\/p>\n
“We have been enduring only one hour of electricity daily since this issue began. Studying in darkness has severely impacted our exam preparation,” voiced John Afolabi, one of the protesting students.<\/p>\n
The protest, which commenced early in the morning, saw students brandishing placards and chanting slogans as they barricaded the highway, causing significant disruption to traffic flow and leaving commuters stranded.<\/p>\n
“We will not disperse until action is taken. Our academic success is at stake because of the university’s negligence,” asserted Sarah Osaigbovo, a 300-level student from the Ugbowo campus.<\/p>\n
Despite the inclement weather, students remained steadfast in their demand for a swift resolution to the electricity crisis that has disrupted their academic routine.<\/p>\n
In response to inquiries, UNIBEN’s spokesperson, Benedicta Ehanire, indicated that the university’s Senate was actively engaged in discussions to address the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students of the University of Benin took to the streets on Wednesday, effectively shutting down the busy Benin-Ore highway to protest against a persistent power outage that has crippled campus activities for weeks, just two weeks before their first semester examinations. The university campus has been plunged into darkness following a dispute with the Benin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":37281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37285,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37277\/revisions\/37285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}