Juliana Francis
Residents of Lagos Island on Monday morning shut down the Power Holdings Company of Nigeria (PHCN) head office at Marina being used by Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) for four hours, protesting against total power blackout for four weeks.
The protesters, numbering over 600 residents on the Island who gave 24 24-hour ultimatum for restoration of light in their respective areas, stormed the EKEDC head office, barricaded the entrance and the major Marina road for about four hours, chatting war songs and threatened to burn down the building if the officials failed to attend and address their problems.
However, the DPO of Lion Building Police Station, Mr Ishola used his professional experience to persuade the protesters to allow motorists involved in the heavy traffic which had escalated to all roads on the Island, to move.
With his appeal that it’s their right to protest but should not destroy or vandalise anything, the protesters gave way to the motorists to ease the tension.
The first batch of the protesters, led by consumers’ Chairmen of eight transformers on the Adeniji Adele feeder turned deaf ears to pleads by the security attached to the office, who insisted not leave the premises until the PHCN senior officials come down to address their plights.
When the EKEDC senior officials eventually came, the Chairman of all the Chairmen of the affected transformers, Prince Ojulari Olatunji Lateef in his address, lamented that the erratic power supply to their areas started early this year and whenever they complained to the undertaking manager at both Idumagbo and Ajele, they were persuaded to go with assurance that something better will be done.
According to him, “Instead of the expected better improvement, it became worse and to add to our wound, your office increased the bill by 400 per cent and anyone who failed to pay 2/3 or the full amount will have his or her wire disconnected from poll”.
“The light will be on around 10 am and turned off at about 11.30 am. They restored the light around midnight and off it by 4 am. At times, there will be no light for two or three days but when they bring bills, a person residing in a room apartment who leaves for work as early as possible and returns in the evening, will be forced to pay N35,000 to N40,000. When we complain, the officials will tell us that they are doing their job and if we don’t agree, we should go to their head office to complain.
“We usually appealed to our people that things will change for the better soon. Now, for the past four weeks, we haven’t had light at all and when they brought the bills, the person paying N25,000 now charged N52,000. We can’t take it anymore. Come and remove your wires in our areas or it may be vandalized by miscreants whom we can’t identify and we will not be responsible for it.
“Our demands include the restoration of the light within 24 hours, and review the billing by reducing the exorbitant accumulated debt for light we don’t use. No more one day off, two days on, set up a monitoring committee who will be visiting our areas from time to time and be having a meeting with us regularly”, he remarked.
Corroborating his demands, one of the transformer’s Chairman, Mr Nojimu Oladeinde also called for prompt attention of the technicians who address faults, revealing that “whenever we have a fault and call these people, they extort money from us before they carry out the necessary work. However, we are not complaining about that because residents too always contribute tokens to support the PHCN”.
“The exorbitant bills are deliberate because the meters attached to each transformer on energy supplied don’t correspond with the amount they brought for us. You should know that we too are monitoring everything. Enough of this manipulation and forceful extortion”, he said.
He added, “Their meters read N1.7 million and they bring us N7 million to us to pay. Enough is enough”.
Responding to the protester’s demands, the MD of Eko distribution, Mrs Rekia who led other officials appealed to them and asked for 24 hours to address all the points made.
While denying awareness of the consumers’ plight, she pledged to look into it and get back to the people.
Also appealing to the crowds, the head of the Technical section, Engineer Okpo and the director of Service Management, Ayo Taiwo assured us that things will be better now for the consumers.
While the first batch was leaving the area, another batch from Freeman and Tapa Streets also came to make their complaints.
However, the protesters who came with their respective bills dumped them at the premises for the PHCN officials to look into.
