Inside Ogun Community Living In Darkness For Two Months

For residents of Alamo, a community in the Magboro area of Ogun State, the absence of electricity has become more than an inconvenience.
It has disrupted businesses, complicated household activities, affected students and forced families to spend more money on alternatives to public power supply.

For more than two months, residents have endured a prolonged blackout, with many struggling to cope with the financial and social consequences of living without electricity.

What began as a transformer fault has developed into a prolonged community-wide problem, leaving residents wondering when normal electricity supply will return.

The consequences are visible in homes, shops and small businesses where activities that ordinarily depend on electricity have either become expensive or impossible.

For traders selling cold drinks, frozen foods and other perishable products, the blackout has presented a difficult business reality. Without reliable electricity, preserving goods has become a challenge, while running generators continuously has become increasingly expensive.

Some residents have resorted to purchasing fuel to power generators, while others have reduced their business activities to minimise losses.

A businesswoman in the community, identified as Glory, told newsmen that the situation had become particularly frustrating because residents had contributed money towards repairing the faulty transformer.

She said the community was still waiting for the electricity distribution company to complete the installation and reconnect electricity supply.

Another resident, Chineye Jacinta, said the prolonged outage had made the heat unbearable and complicated ordinary household activities, including food preservation and access to water.

She also described the cost of running generators as unsustainable for many households.

Businesses Count Their Losses

For small business owners, electricity is not simply a household convenience but an essential requirement for survival.

Provision stores, cold-drink sellers, food vendors, barbers, hairdressers and other operators depend on electricity to provide services and preserve products.

Without public electricity, many have been forced to spend a significant portion of their daily income on petrol and alternative power sources.

For businesses operating on limited profit margins, the additional expenditure can make the difference between remaining operational and shutting down.

The situation also raises questions about the burden placed on electricity consumers who must pay for alternative power while continuing to receive electricity bills.

Residents have complained about estimated billing despite the prolonged absence of electricity.

Students Bear The Consequences

Beyond the commercial losses, the blackout has also raised concerns about the learning conditions of students living in the community.

For students preparing for examinations, completing assignments or attending online classes, electricity is an important part of their academic routine.

Those without access to alternative power sources may have to depend on phone charging outlets, commercial charging centres or friends and relatives in neighbouring communities.

Students who rely on electronic devices for research, online learning and communication are particularly vulnerable.

At night, studying becomes more difficult, especially for those living in homes without generators or solar-powered lighting.

The situation also places additional financial pressure on students who must spend money charging phones, laptops and other devices.

Residents reportedly traced the outage to a fault in the community’s transformer.

According to accounts published by PUNCH, residents contributed money towards repairing the facility, but the completion of the installation and reconnection process remained outstanding.

The situation has raised questions about the responsibilities of the electricity distribution company and the reasons the community has remained without regular supply despite residents’ intervention.

The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), which serves the area, needs to clarify the technical issues delaying restoration, the status of the transformer and when residents can expect electricity supply to resume.

The company should also explain whether the outstanding work involves installation, technical approval, network connection or another operational challenge.

Beyond Alamo: Ogun’s Electricity Challenge

The experience of Alamo comes amid wider concerns about electricity supply across Ogun State.

In October 2026, IBEDC announced that 63 communities and areas in the state were experiencing reduced electricity supply following restrictions on the Ota/Papa/Abeokuta 132kV network.

The affected areas included communities in Ado-Odo/Ota, Ifo, Sagamu, Obafemi-Owode, Ewekoro and other local government areas.

Although reduced supply and a complete blackout are different problems, both developments highlight the difficulties facing electricity consumers across the state.

In September, residents of Itesiwaju Omu Arogun, near Mowe, also appealed to the Federal Government and the electricity regulator over an outage they said had lasted more than 18 months.

According to the residents, the prolonged blackout had forced some people to relocate, while several businesses had shut down because of the cost of alternative electricity.