Jos Disco Laments Damage on Facilities by Windstorm

By Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

Jos Electricity Distribution Company (Disco) has bemoaned what it described as the monumental damage on its facilities in Bauchi and other states by windstorm, describing it as “a colossal damage” that will take sometimes to resolve.

Addressing a press conference in Jos recently, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Alhaji Mohammed Gidado Modibbo said “the windstorm which lasted for several hours left a lot of havoc on the facilities to the extent that over 500 poles were collapsed, several meters were damaged, and injection substations and communication masts affected.”

He added: “The immediate consequence of this is that electricity supply to a lot of our customers was cut off throwing them into darkness.

“This really caught us unaware because we were not prepared for it; it is a natural phenomenon which does not take permission from anyone before it happens; so we were so badly affected.”

Represented by the Executive Director, Marketing and Investment, Mr. Verr Jirbo, the managing director however appealed to customers for calm, reassuring that the company’s team of engineers were making efforts to restore power to them.

He added: “We have been able to do some upgrade and reinforcement where we can, but this kind of damage will take a couple of days to fix.

“As a responsible company, we felt that the public and particularly our customers should be properly informed and educated. “We have also sent a powerful delegation to the state to engage the operators of the state at the highest level to let them know what we are facing, because the items that were destroyed are of capital intensive nature and we need a lot of funds to procure these materials and install them.

“We have already informed the Federal Structure; the Ministry of Power, and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), because we need a lot of collaboration to ensure that the issues are resolved and supply is restored to the people.

“Though our company is a private one, we are open to any form of assistance that the Federal Government may be willing to render.”

He said though it was difficult to quantify, in monetary terms, the extent of damage, a couple of hundreds of customers and companies have been affected.