Some housewives in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area (LGA) of Ogun State say they have resorted to grinding stones and charcoal for cooking in place of electric blenders and cookers.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports on Thursday that towns in the LGA like Owode, Lufuwape, Orile-Igbeyin, Ijemo, Jaguna, and Ayetoro, have been experiencing power outage for a while now.

It observed that not less than 80 per cent of the women interviewed had adopted alternative means of cooking due to the blackout.

The women unanimously declared the situation as “unwarranted hardship”.

A primary school teacher, Mrs Funke Aladesanmi, says she now grinds pepper meant to feed her family of 13 with the traditional grinding stone.

“We all know that grinding stone is no more in vogue because of the emergence of blenders.

“However, the electricity needed to power the blender is not available.

“Blender is easier to use, as it grinds faster and consumes less energy, but we have been in total darkness for some time now,” she said.

A petty trader, Mrs Funke Talogbo, said the power outage had negatively impacted the prices of cooking gas and charcoal.

According to her, a kilogramme of gas sells for N1,700, while a small pack of charcoal is sold for N500.

“If the power is stable, the prices of these things will not be as high as they are now,” Talogbo said.

Meanwhile, Miss Kausarat Adedeji pleaded with the federal and state governments to help the masses by ensuring the reduction of prices of food items.

She lamented that besides the power outage, prices of foodstuffs had risen geometrically.

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She advised the government to support farmers the more to make the supply of foodstuffs exceed its demand.

“This will automatically bring down the inflation rate; and the government should do something about electricity tariff too,” she said.

Husband to one of the women, Dr. Alafia Abu, pleaded with the government to urgently provide solutions to the challenges before they lead to crimes in the society.

Meanwhile, on the outage, the spokesperson, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), Ms Busolami Tunwase, said that more transformer repair workshops were needed.

She also said that partnership with Independent Power Producers (IPP) and alternative solar energy mini-grid producers would go a long way in rectifying the situation.

She called on the government and power companies to facilitate effective metering of electricity consumers in Nigeria.

This, she said, would lead to good energy management and accountability.

The Star