Admin l Wednesday, December 21, 2016
LAGOS, Nigeria – Hundred of residents in Lagos Island on Wednesday morning stormed Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Marina to protest total blackout and attendant heat wave which they alleged led to the death of a father and son in their area.
The protesters who came from different areas like Ricca, Ewe-ina, Andrew,Tokunbo, Joseph and other adjacent streets alleged that there had been total blackout in their areas for about three months.
According to their spokesperson,Bamidele Suliat, “We ve been experiencing bad service from this PHCN people in the last three months but the recent incident made it worst because of the death of an oldman and his son who were suffocated as a result of too much heat when there was no light”.
“We are tired of all these and now demanded for our right. The PHCN staff came to our area to disconnect our wires from pole with insinuation that we are owing them for light we did not use. We stop them and they invited the police, we still resisted but were surprised with false claim that we beat the officials”, she said.
She also alleged that residents pay the officials to rectify faults especially the payment of N300,000.00 for stolen cable which was suppose to be PHCN responsibility.
In a swift reaction to the allegations, an official in the Public Affairs Department of Eko Electricity Distribution company, Victor Odi refuted all with explanations that there was no proof to sustain the claims.
“We always ask the residents to give us names of any corrupt officials not by mere verbal allegation. We have a long list of some corrupt officials dismissed for extortion and related offences. Let them always report to us and we will take adequate action “, he said.
Speaking on the power failure, Odi claimed that there is low output from the national grid and “we are to give out what we get. Because of this, we embark on load-shedding of energy. People should bear with us”.
