There is something profoundly symbolic — and deeply tragic — about a hospital swathed in darkness. In the operating theatre, darkness is not an inconvenience; it is a death sentence. In the intensive care unit, a power outage is not a management failure; it is a clinical catastrophe. And yet, for more than 16 months, the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan — Nigeria’s oldest and most venerated tertiary health institution — has been lurching from one blackout to another, managing a crisis so chronic that its workers have now been compelled to abandon patients to make the government hear them.
The facts are damning. Between November 3, 2024, and February 12, 2025, UCH was enveloped in total darkness for 102 consecutive days — more than three months — after the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) disconnected the facility over an outstanding debt of approximately N400 million, part of a ballooning total liability reportedly exceeding N3.1 billion. Vaccines spoiled. Surgeries were cancelled. New admissions were halted. Patients on life-support equipment were exposed to mortal risk. And yet, even after that humiliation, the power supply was not adequately restored. Instead, electricity was rationed and restricted — a slow drip of voltage that, according to 11 unions under the Council of UCH Union Leaders (CUUL), was being deliberately managed to deny workers and patients the basic infrastructure to function. This is what drove healthcare workers to declare a five-day warning strike on March 3, shutting down services at a hospital that sees tens of thousands of patients annually.
The workers are right to be angry. They are also right to be desperate. But their anger and despair should be directed, with surgical precision, at the two men whose professional mandates make this crisis directly their responsibility — the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, and the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu. Between these two men lies the full scope of the UCH power crisis. One oversees the nation’s health infrastructure; the other oversees its electricity supply. Together, they have had more than a year to resolve a problem that, by any objective measure, should have been solved within weeks. They have not.
Nigeria cannot wait for UCH Ibadan to decay. President Bola Tinubu should immediately direct the finance ministry to settle UCH’s electricity debts in full, mandate a dedicated and uninterruptible power supply infrastructure for the hospital — including solar or alternative energy — and demand accountability from both ministers. A hospital in darkness is a nation confessing its failure. UCH must not remain in the dark.