Residents of Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja have taken turns to air their grievances over the the state of abysmal power supply in the city. 

The FCT and its surroundings environs under the franchise of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), have been plunged in darkness for the past few weeks. 

The Minister of Power had earlier attributed the blackout which he described as "nationwide" to reduction in hydro capacity of dams and maintenance work at gas plants. 

Similarly, the AEDC fingered low power generation from the national grid as responsible for the poor supply of electricity to its franchise areas. 

The power outage is not siting well with residents of the FCT who say the situation have been made worse by the removal of electricity subsidy by the Federal Government. 

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had over the weekend disclosed that the Federal Government quietly removed the subsidy on electricity tariff.

According to her: “We have been able to quietly implement subsidy removal in the electricity sector and as we speak, we don’t have subsidies in the electricity sector. We did that incrementally over time by carefully adjusting the prices at some levels.”

How Nigerians are reacting:

A resident who identified himself as Chucks from Karimo said Nigerians were not aware that the Federal Government paid subsidy on electricity, adding that the announced removal signalled continued suffering. 

According to him: “Were we really paying, when, how and why tell us you have stopped what we never knew existed. We are being taken for granted. Labour can't stand up for us, neither can civil society. When will this suffering end? We are tired.”

Also decrying the situation, Mummy-G, a resident of Maitama quizzed “what's the way forward after the removal of the subsidy,” adding that “would it improve the epileptic power supply?“

Mummy-G went on to note that she wouldn't mind paying more for electricity if it is stable.

According to her: “I live in Maitama. My husband used to not know how to operate electricity generator because of constant supply we enjoyed. It's surprising how we got here and with talks of subsidy removal, what's the way forward? We are ready to pay any amount if they can improve the power supply.” 

On his part, David, a resident of Wuye who pays for electricity using estimated billing wondered if the epileptic supply would make AEDC reconsider what he termed “cost effective tariff.“

According to him: “I remember they harped on cost effective tariff when apportioning how much people pay in any area based on supply. Are they going to adjust it with considering the persisting blackout? It seems official scamming is happening in this country.”

Re-echoing David's concerns, Michael, another resident from Wuye who also pays for electricity via estimated billing said: “As of January I was paying #8, 150 as estimated bill. Every month it keeps increasing by #100. I now pay #8,955. The blackout was worst last week as we only had power three times. 

“When AEDC made a Facebook post to explain reasons behind the blackout I asked them if it will affect my billing but got no reply. We seem to be just paying for darkness not light. May God help Nigeria,” he said.