Power firm disconnects electricity consumers for insulting manager

Residents of Itire-Ikate/Ijesha in Itire-Ikate Local Council Development Area of Lagos State have been told by the Business Manager, Mushin Business District, of the Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Mr. D.O Adewunmi, that they would have no electricity supply because they abused him.

Residents of the community, comprising over 20 streets, had mobilised to the Marina, Lagos Island head office of the company to protest alleged insensitivity of the Mushin Business District to their plight.

They lamented that members of staff of the business district were in the habit of extorting money from them before rendering any form of assistance. They also complained of poor services, estimated billings and general poor attitude of the company staff to their customers.

Wielding placards bearing various inscriptions such as “We don’t want darkness” and “crazy billing is evil”, the protesters blocked the road in front of the office, chanting solidarity songs. The Public Relations Officer of the company, Godwin Idemudia, asked the protesters, who were in their hundreds, to select representatives to meet with the management inside the company.

At the meeting, the leader of the delegation, Baba Owe, presented the group’s position to the management of the EKEDC. He said, “We are here to register our grievances because all our entreaties to the Mushin Business District have yielded no results.

“Your employees are in the habit of maltreating their customers because they enjoy monopoly. We pay for virtually everything – wire, metres, maintenance, repairs and many more. This is apart from the normal bills which are not only outrageous, but wicked. Nobody comes to read our metres, yet we get crazy bills every month.

“Just last Thursday, your men came before dawn to disconnect our community from the Johnson feeder, disabling over 60 transformers and keeping over 20 streets in darkness.”

Addressing the representatives, the Deputy Managing Director of the company, Mr. Ramesh, explained that the company had concluded plans to begin the distribution of prepaid metres to all its customers.

“We have sent a proposal and once it is approved by the regulators, we will begin implementation, which will be in phases within a period of three to four years. We would have distributed standard prepaid meters to our over 600,000 customers,” he said.

On the issue of poor services, he explained that the nation as a whole, with a population of over 170 million people, generates only about 4, 000 megawatts of electricity, out of which only about 300 megawatts gets to Lagos which is barely enough, but promised that services would improve with time.

The protesters then asked what the EKEDC would do to ensure that their electricity supply was restored. The Vice President (legal) of Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Wola Ojoye, asked why they were disconnected but the residents said they did not know.

Ojoye subsequently called the business manager, Adewunmi, on the telephone and put the conversation on speaker.

The protesters were stunned when Adewunmi, said that his reason for disconnecting the community’s electricity supply for four days was because the people were ‘abusing and threatening’ him.

“They were abusing and threatening me, sending threat messages to me and members of my team. So I disconnected them,” he said.

Ojoye subsequently instructed Adewunmi to re-connect the community.http://www.punchng.com/metro-plus/power-firm-disconnects-electricity-consumers-for-insulting-manager/