Amidst Nigeria’s disturbing power crisis, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, has sounded the alarm over decomposing corpses in Army mortuaries due to widespread blackouts caused by an astronomical N42 billion electricity debt haunting the Nigerian Army.
In a desperate plea for intervention, Lagbaja disclosed the dire consequences of the blackout during a visit to the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, disclosing that barracks and cantonments have been engulfed in darkness since January.
He was quoted as saying, “Debt owed is loaded on the meter, so no matter the amount of credit we put, the meters pick it automatically. Corpses in the Army mortuaries are decomposing and the owners of the corpses are protesting.”
Lagbaja’s concerns echo the urgent need for resolution as protests regularly erupt among families grappling with the grim reality of decaying bodies in military morgues.
The stark revelation underscored the security threats posed by the power outage, prompting Lagbaja to urge for debt liquidation akin to measures taken in 2005.
While Adelabu assured dialogue with power distribution companies to ease the burden, he emphasized the complex challenges facing the power sector, including vandalism, inefficiency, and liquidity woes.
