Residents, mainly youths from the Oke-afa area and Diamond
Estate stormed the hall at the Samkoll Gardens venue uninvited raising placard
in protest, and marching round mounting their displeasure to the energy
distribution company.
In the Business Manager, IKEDC, Engr. Ifeanyichukwu
Ifeacho’s address delivered before the protest highjack, he acknowledged that
the quality of services has not hit the expected levels, since some area are
suffering from lack of energy supply for days.
He said, “ it is worthy of note that our quality of service has not hit the
most expected level as there were numbers of occasions when some areas suffer
from lack of electricity supply for hours, days and weeks.”
Ifeacho, however, attributed disruption to energy supply to
natural occurrences and activates of vandals that has not been put under check.
On the plans of the company to improve power supply, the
power manger informed of the immediate plan to step up the transformer at
Ejigbo and other areas.
“ I must let you know
that the problematic 30M.V.A transformer in Ejigbo whose capacity weight can no
longer carry the now expansive network has been replaced with 100M.V.A and will
be commission by month end.
“I must confess to you that the good times are here already.
The management procured some transformers to replace the failed ones at the
following locations recently…the long time benefits of these laudable projects
cannot be over-emphasized,” he said concluding that he believes the communities
will reciprocate these gestures by paying their bills promptly.
Engr. Ifeacho, afterwards, informed the customers that they
still have huge debts profiles, which most customer have refused to pay under
the guise that power supply has not improved.
According to him, “we still have a debt profile of 56
million naira and NON MD- of over 3 billion. Most customers have come under the
cover of erratic power supply and have over
time refused to pay each time the supply situation improves.
time refused to pay each time the supply situation improves.
“It is obvious that such categorically hinges on the wide
metering gap amidst uproar by our esteemed customers on 'excessive billing'. …
I want to say that the Management has been doing all to stem this tide and will
be metered soonest.”
Reacting to his
speech, the protesters who were not initially visible, obviously sitting behind
and hanging outside the hall, took over the meeting with placards.
Displayed on the placard were, “Our wives and children are
always going to hospital: the medical bills are killing us.”, “we are tired of
paying electricity bills without getting light”, etc.
One of the community leaders who obviously was not in league
with the protest, the Community Development Committee, CDC, chairman of
Igando-Ikotun LCDA, Elder Ademola Oszibeluwo made efforts to calm down the
protesters who later presented delegates to later address the meeting.
Our correspondent gathered from one of the protesters
referred to as Oyibo from the Oke-afa area that resides in Ejigbo area have
been in the dark for months, irrespective of the fact that bills have been
coming and they have been paying.
Rebuffing attempts to stop the protest, he said that they
are tied of running the generator and still be paying energy bills without
enjoying \what they are paying for.
Another protester whose name was not disclosed said that the
whole essence of the meeting was to make the residents keep paying their energy
bills with no attempts from the company to supplying energy to the residents.
He called the meeting a scam.
In an interview with Our Community Newspaper, the CDC
Chairman Igando/Ikotun LCDA, Elder Ademola Osibeluwo, said that the protest was
uncalled for. According to him, the meeting was not meant for the residents of
Oke-afa and Diamond Estate who barged into the meeting uninvited. He said that
the reason he is so involved is because, his administration does not want the
youths to take advantage of the crisis to cause chaos.
He, however, informed that they simple wanted to give
dialogue a trial and if by the end of the month, as they promised, if there is
no improvement, they would revert to their initial plans.
He said, “As we always say, we believe in trial. They have
given us their words that by the end of this month there will be lots of
improvements in their services. If by the end of this month we don't see any
improvement we will go back to the table and we will talk about it again.
“If they don't do anything about all the promises they made
to us, then we will now take a bold step because what we told them before they
came for the meeting was that Igando-Ikotun is in blackout, they should resolve
this problems, if all what they told us is not true then we will write a letter
to them to disconnect Igando-Ikotun from the grid and we will be using our
generator until they are ready to do whatever we ask, and we will call on our
CDAs the whole seven wards not to pay them anything.”
Our community newspaper gathered that a number of IKDEC
senior staff held a closed-door meeting with the community leaders of
Igando-Ikotun on Thursday of the very week to reach an agreement on how
electricity problems and complaints by residents would be tackled.
The meeting, which had in attendance over 200 Community
Development Association, CDA, Leaders under the LCDA, executives of the CDC and
LCDA officials, yielded some positive results.
According to a source, name withheld, who was present at the
meeting, he said the IKDEC reached an agreement with the community leaders on
the following:
- That
every CDA chairman should detain anyone
who claims to be from IKDEC on assignment to their area who has no ID tag on
till any official comes to identify them;
- That
anytime they are sending out their officials on assignment to any area within
the LCDA, the CDA chairman of the area would be informed so that they can
monitor the progress;
- that the
energy company would be working together with the community leaders to ensure
that electricity supply is stepped up.
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