Naija we hail thee-Nigerians Now Import Ice-Block From Niger Republic Due To Persistent Power Outage

Due to the worsening outage of electricity in Katsina metropolis, the residents, especially owners of businesses requiring refrigeration for their wares, now travel to neighbouring Niger Republic to purchase ice blocks.

Although Nigeria supplies the bulk of  electricity used in the neighbouring country, Peoples Daily however, observed that residents of Katsina have for months been experiencing acute power supply where it is now rare to have uninterrupted power supply for at least 30 minutes.

A  Fura and cold water vendor along IBB Way, Katsina, Uztaz Muhammad Umar told our correspondent that he travelled from Katsina to Maradi in Niger Republic to buy the ice blocks so as to preserve his goods.

He noted that the huge special ice block made for sale to Nigerians cost between N300 to N500 adding "we use to wrap it in a rag or a special leather bag to prevent it from melting. We thank God that we have Niger Republic closer, otherwise we would have left this business for long".

According to him, "we play the role of retailers of this ice block too. Apart from buying for our use, we also break it into pieces for sale to other people who cannot travel to Maradi to purchase it. Our customers were usually pure water vendors".

A pure water and soft drink vendor, Miss Moyo Esther Abe complained to our correspondent that they are facing hard times due to the irregular power supply which has forced them into other businesses that do not require any form of cooling for preservation.

It would be recalled that on Friday January 19, 2012, the Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji said the country's power generation would hit over 6,000 megawatts this year if gas supplies endure.