…As 15MVA Transformer Serves 350,000 Lagos Residents Causing Anguish
By ‘Dotun Akintomide
Residents of Santos, Onilekere, Onipetesi, Valley and Punch Estates spanning Alimosho and Ikeja Local Government Areas of Lagos State on Thursday took to the streets to protest what they termed as “exploitation and outrageous billing” by the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC).
The protesters, who brandished placards with various inscriptions such as: ‘No prepaid meter, No payment’, ‘Evil thrives under darkness, give us light’, ‘Enough of one day on, two of days off’, Replacing 15MVA Transformer with 7MVA is not acceptable’ among other concerns called on IKEDC to urgently address their plights or risk more protest actions.
Dressed in black clothes to express the state of black out that has continuously thrown the communities into quandary, the visibly aggrieved protesters in their mammoth crowd however alleged that IKEDC staff kept bringing estimated bills despite being in black out for over 12 months in the area.
“It has become so bad that they give us estimated billings, they bring outrageous bills, there is a situation of 5 houses having a problem of total damage of electric cable yet they kept bringing bills as high as an average of N13,000 per month, so we are saying enough of this, if there is no power we won’t pay. We can’t be paying for sunshine.
“If we cannot get power, then there shouldn’t be any billing coming to our estates,” Chairman, Valley Estate Residents’ Association, Mike Urubusi told The New Diplomat at the protest scene.
“We have been here several times, we have written series of letters to them and they have continually lied to us telling us there’s a transformer they are bringing from Epe. Later they say they are going to import transformers to areas affected and install a new one at Mangoro substation.”
He alleged that IKEDC has refused to attend to the jaded transformer at Mangoro since January which serves a whole stretch of communities with an estimated population figure, The New Diplomat found out to be over 350,000 people according to 2006 census figures.
“The transformer that broke down at Mangoro is 15MVA and what they’re bringing now is 7.5 MVA. How can 7.5MVA serve that stretch of communities,” Urubusi queried.
Also, he said the non-provision of pre-paid meters to the electricity consumers in the communities by IKEDC has led to exploitation of residents in the area through estimated billings which does not commensurate with the actual power consumption by consumers.
Another resident who simply identified himself as Amaechi said, “less than 5% of houses in the communities have been provided with prepaid meters. We have written letters and dialogued with them, yet nothing has changed, we had to resort to this to drive home our demands.”
According to Tosin Bada, a resident of Santos estate, the load shedding arrangement by IKEDC in the affected communities had compelled residents to a disturbing ‘one-day on’ and ‘two-day off’ power supply arrangement, an enduring routine that meant residents hardly have 5 hours of electricity supply in 3 days.
“They put us on one-day on and two-day off (power shedding arrangement), which I have never heard of anywhere in Lagos state. Even during ‘On days’ we don’t get up to 4 hours of electricity supply,” Bada stated.
He lamented that the development has forced many residents to move out of the estates and “has largely contributed to redundancy among artisans and business owners in the communities” as many have lost huge fortunes to the menace of power outage running into months.
Meanwhile, after communities’ representatives met officials of IKEDC on Thursday, a meeting inspired by the protest, the power distribution company demanded to be given a week timeline to connect the communities to a 15MVA transformer at Mangoro sub-station, a move residents disagreed with, saying the promised 15MVA transformer which is currently in a bad state was old-fashioned and will further compound their woes.
To drive home their demands, attempts by communities’ representatives who demanded to speak directly with the IKEDC CEO failed as they were asked to make an official request through a written letter before holding talks with him. Albeit, residents resolved not to back down in protesting the alleged ills by the Ikeja Disco, if nothing was done to ameliorate their sufferings.
Efforts to speak with officials of the IKEDC at the protest scene never materialized as they declined to address the press despite several demands.
However, the Head Corporate Communications, Ikeja Electric, Felix Ofulue, while reacting to some queries sent to him by The New Diplomat replied through a text on Friday saying: “They have promised to officially send in their demands to Ikeja Electric. When that is done, we will address the issues appropriately. Protest is not a suitable method to resolve issues. Their issues will be addressed in a proper manner.”
The New Diplomat recalls, earlier in the year, at the 12th Monthly Power Sector and Stakeholders’ Meeting in Ibadan, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola confessed he will also be resistant to payment of electricity bill if there is no supply.
“Consumers are more resistant to payment when they don’t have electricity, and I will be, too, and you will be too.
“We see that they (consumers) pay more when the power is more stable. Of course, there are issues also at the retail end – metering, estimated bills,” Fashola commented on the tortuous issue which has become the bane of power distribution chain across the country.
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