Some residents of Apapa road and Ebutte Metta, in Lagos State, on Wednesday protested 32 days power outage by the Eko Electricity Distribution company (EKEDC), Lagos.
The residents, under the aegis of Concerned Community Development Associations, (CDAs), staged a peaceful rally on major streets, and submitted a protest letter to the EKEDC District Manager in the area.
The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions as they marched to the district office of the company in Ebute-Meta.
Some of the placards read: “EKEDC, our mumu don do,” “This extortion must stop,” “We are your customers, we know our rights,” “Stop distributing bills when there is no supply” and “Enough is enough”.
Alhaji Mudasiru Taiwo, a former Chairman of the association told the News Agency of Nigeria that EKEDC was just extorting residents of the area.
“When EKEDC brings electricity for three days, within those days, they will bring bills and make sure the residents pay for the bills, then the residents would be on blackout for 27 days.
“So, when they brought the last bills, we rejected them because we cannot continue to pay for what we did not consume.
“Honestly, there is no justification for the bills when there was no supply throughout the month of February.
“So, we are thinking they may still bring bills this month despite the outage, that is why we came out to protest, we do not want a repeat of last month’s situation,” Taiwo said.
Mrs Funke Ilori, a civil servant with Lagos State Government, who resides on Thomas Str., Ebute-Meta, called on officials of the company to remove their cables from the poles, since they no longer supplied power to them.
“In the last 32 days that we have been on outage, majority of us have resigned to destiny, so I will suggest that EKEDC should come and remove our wires from the poles.
“What is the use of connecting us without supply,” Ilori said.
Mr Julius Ajumobi, one of the protesters, said the areas affected were Ibadan Str., Babani Str., Park Str., Thomas Str., Joseph Lambo Str, Ondo Str., Brickfield Str. and parts of Railway Road.
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Ajumobi, a frozen fish trader, said the outage affected all traders of frozen products, adding that most of them had relocated to other areas in Island where electricity supply was constant.
Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Godwin Idemudia, the General Manager, Corporate Communications Department, EKEDC, however, said the issue was being addressed.
Idemudia said representatives of the affected communities and the company recently held a town hall meeting in Surulere on the matter.
“Apart from the fault we initially had on the feeder, which has been cleared, they refused paying for energy already consumed by them.
“No business thrives when money owed is not paid.
“Also, they refused our staff access into their community to carry out their legitimate duties, which is unacceptable.
“We have had series of meetings with them. We are surprised at the protest which does not favour either side.
“My advice is for both parties to continue to sit at a round table so we can resolve the lingering issues amicably. We value our customers,” Idemudia said.
(NAN)
