Residents of Masewele Community in Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State on Wednesday decried power outage in the area in the last two weeks.
Mr. Bamgbose Oladele, the Chairman, Electricity Committee, Masewele Community Development Association, spoke on behalf of the residents in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
NAN reports that areas affected include Major Street, Labinjo Street, Oduntan Street, Odesanya Street, Adeyanju Street, Alamutu Market, Wilkey Street, Shoremekun Street, Martins Street and Erikitoka Street.
Oladele said that the outage was as a result of the disconnection of electricity supply to the area by Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC from the transformer.
“This has put the entire community in total darkness in the last 16 days,” he said.
Oladele said that the outage had paralyzed social and economic activities in the area.
“We have been paying our monthly electricity bills to EKEDC until 2015 when the transformer supplying our community became faulty.
“In spite of the fact that we were in darkness for over one year, EKEDC was still billing us monthly.
“Eventually, when the transformer was repaired, we held meetings with EKEDC officials to reduce or nullify the bills given to us during the period of outage.
“Instead of reducing the bills, EKEDC started giving the consumers in the community outrageous bills.
“All appeals made by our leaders in the community and other stakeholders to EKEDC to stop circulating outrageous electricity bills on monthly basis have not yielded positive results.
“The electricity bills for September, October and November recently circulated to us worsen the situation,” Oladele said.
He said that the residents were given bills of an average of N20, 000 and N25, 000 monthly as their electricity consumption.
Oladele said that the residents had written many letters to the EKEDC management, adding that all efforts made by the stakeholders to resolve the issues were rebuffed by EKEDC officials.
Also, Mr. Osunniyi Olalekan, a landlord at Labinjo Street, said that the outage had made the community vulnerable to activities of cultists and armed robbers at night.
Olalekan said: “This outage has also affected our economic activities.
“We urge EKEDC to restore electricity to our community and hold meeting with us on how to resolve the impasse.’’ In his remarks, Mr. Chinedu Okafor, a cybercafé operator at Alamutu Market, said he had been running his business at a loss for the past two weeks due to the outage.
“I have to fuel my generator daily because of this power outage,” Okafor said.
He appealed to EKEDC management to convene a meeting with the community’s representatives to resolve the misunderstanding and restore electricity supply to the community.
When contacted, Mr. Godwin Idemudia, the General Manager, Corporate Communications Unit, EKEDC, said that the company was aware of disconnection of electricity to the area.
Idemudia appealed to the residents to exercise patience, saying that the issue would soon be rectified.
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