For more than seven months, Ayetoro, the headquarters of Yewa North Local Government Area, has lived with an electricity supply residents describe as barely existent. The outage, they say, began in February 2026 and has since become a daily tax on families, traders, artisans and students.
What started as another familiar stretch of “no light” has hardened into a prolonged crisis. Households cook and study by generator or lantern. Small businesses that once opened after dusk now close early or burn fuel they can hardly afford. Students at Comprehensive High School and at the Agricultural Faculty of Olabisi Onabanjo University in the town have been forced to work around darkness rather than around a timetable.
Residents say the cost is no longer just an inconvenience. It is cash leaving the community every week. Petrol, diesel and generator repairs have replaced the electricity bill as the main energy expense. Artisans — welders, grinders, hairdressers, cold-room operators — report lost jobs and lost customers. Shop owners say they either pass the extra cost to buyers or watch turnover collapse.
The town sits among other Yewa North communities, including Olorunda, Imeko and Igbogila, that have also struggled for years with poor or absent supply. Local history makes the present outage harder to swallow. In 2024, community groups in Ayetoro and neighbouring towns issued an ultimatum to the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) after months without power. In 2025, Dangote Cement’s Ibese plant donated materials to reconnect 21 communities in the same local government after a blackout that had lasted about three years. The return of long darkness in 2026, residents argue, shows the problem was never fully solved.
Isolation has compounded the hardship. The main road linking Ayetoro to Abeokuta is still under repair, slowing the movement of fuel, spare parts and farm produce at the same time that power is missing. For a town that hosts a university campus and a major public school, the combination of bad road and no electricity is being felt as a development setback, not a temporary fault.
Community representatives say they are not asking for luxury. They want a working supply that allows children to read at night, businesses to stay open, and public institutions to function without generators. They have called on IBEDC, the state government and relevant federal agencies to treat Ayetoro as a priority and to show a clear timetable for restoration — not another promise that expires in the dark.
Until that happens, Ayetoro’s nights remain expensive, its classrooms constrained, and its small economy running on fumes.
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