Residents of the Oyero community in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State have expressed their dissatisfaction over the epileptic power supply in the area.
They also charged the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) with excessive billing.
Members of the community claimed there was no evidence of the huge amounts of money they paid in monthly payments.
“We are peace-loving people; we pay for energy, but IBEDC offers us darkness in return,” Mujidat Ayorinde, a community leader, said. Our monthly bills range between N5,000 and N10,000.
“Only on rare occasions do they bring electricity.” We pay these expenses, but we only have power for two hours per day.
“As a result of IBEDC’s inadequate electrical delivery, some businesses in Oyero have closed their doors, while others have relocated to other places.”
“The only government hospital here cannot function well due to permanent blackout. Our appeal to the management of IBEDC is to come to our aid. They should provide light not darkness.”
A youth leader in the community, Ajayi Saheed, said they had written letters and held meetings with IBEDC without results.
“We are frustrated and that’s why we are crying out to the management of IBEDC before we lose our means of livelihood,” he added.
Another resident, Gboyega Fatokun, who is the Chairman of the Ore Otun Community Development Council, said the community bought electric poles, transformers and wires without any help from the power company.
“We even paid IBEDC to energise the transformers. It is really frustrating and wicked for us not to enjoy the power we worked hard to install in our community,” he said.
The IBEDC Media Relations Officer, Busolami Tunwase, said Oyero was not the only community suffering from blackout in its network.
She said,” There have been cases of grid collapses in recent times and before then, what we get from the Transmission Company of Nigeria is what we distribute to the communities that we service. This is a nationwide problem, though we apologise to the communities.
“We feel their pain. Yet, what we don’t have, we cannot give. It will be our joy that they have electricity for the whole 24 hours but look at what is happening with power generation in the country, we share what we get to all the communities.”
The spokesperson also advised the community to apply for pre-paid meters.
PUNCH
