Ejiofor Alike
Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company has appealed to its customers for understanding as darkness hits Ejigbo, Oke-Afa, Ikotun Egbe, Egan and Igando communities, in addition to Arepo, Warewa and Channels Television axis, which were earlier affected by power outages.
In a statement at the weekend, the company expressed regret over the prolonged outage witnessed by the affected communities in Lagos and Ogun States.
According to the company, the outages are due to a faulty 100MVA transformer at Ejigbo Transmission Station as well as other multiple faults along the network in that area.
“The transmission company has commenced repairs on the faulty transformer, however in the interim customers will be temporarily back fed through alternative sources to mitigate the current blackout pending the completion of the repair. In a similar development, the recent damage of the 33KV Electric Towers along Abeokuta Expressway, by a truck has resulted in power outage in Millennium Estate, LSDPC Estate Ojokoro, Agbado, Aboru, Jankara and parts of Abeokuta environs. Technical teams have commenced effecting repairs, however, due to the extensive damage, restoration of power to affected areas may take another five days,” the company explained.
Residents of Warewa and Arepo communities, including the popular Journalists’ Estate, as well as surrounding communities in Ogun State, have been in pains and agonies, following the darkness that enveloped the areas as a result of disruption of their electricity supply for the past five weeks.
The leaders of the affected communities, who spoke to THISDAY off the records, alleged that despite several representations to the management of the company, the areas have remained in darkness for four weeks.
According to them, the disruption of power supply in those areas has collapsed economic activities and dislocated homes, stressing also that at the end of the crisis, the company will still go ahead to slam customers with exorbitant bills for power not supplied.
“We have visited their office in Alausa and all they told us was that they were tracing the fault. Our people are surprised why it is taking them eternity to identify and rectify this fault. Life has been made miserable for us,” said one of the residents.
“It affected many communities. If you are going to Redeem Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Express, after Ojodu Berger, there is a long bridge where they sell cattle. All the communities from that river to Arepo are affected,” he added.
One of the residents also alleged that when they visited the Chief Operating Officer (COO), who acts as the managing director, he claimed that he was not aware that the areas were in darkness.
“The MD said he was surprised and that he was not aware that there was no power in those areas. It took them two weeks before they traced the fault but up till now, they have not rectified the fault,” he added.
THISDAY also gathered from one of the residents that the company had traced the fault to an area that was heavily flooded by the Ogun River and was insisting that the fault should wait till the dry season.
“One of their staff told us that they have traced the fault to an area that was flooded. They said that they can’t rectify the fault until the end of the rainy reason. But is that fair? Why can’t they use boat to go there and repair the fault? The worst is that they will still come up with their crazy bills at the end of the month. It is only NERC that can come to our rescue. That is where we are today,” he said.
In an official response to the power disruption, the company had told the residents that the “current supply interruption is as result of a fault on the feeder supplying your vicinity. Our technicians are currently working to resolve this.”
