President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke has said most Nigerian universities are on the verge of shutting down over the unbearable cost of electricity.
Prof. Osodeke said this during the opening of a two-day national conference convened by ASUU in Abuja with the theme: “Nigeria in a State of General Crisis: The Search for a New Path to Development,” on Thursday.
The ASUU president said while public universities receive N15m monthly from the federal government as running costs, the electricity bills of some universities run between N200m to N300m monthly.
Osodeke said the classification of electricity consumers into bands has increased the cost of most universities, adding that the rise in electricity cost was hampering the administration of most public universities in the country. The university lecturer said this has forced some universities to channel their internally generated revenue to the running of their operation.
