By Desire Emmanuel
Residents of Ire Akari Community of Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, on Saturday, October 25, took to the streets protesting over the refusal of the officials of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), to connect their new transformer to the national gird after spending N11 million for its installation.
They, therefore, appealed to Governor Dapo Abiodun to intervene on their behalf in ensuring that the electricity distribution company does the needful and save them from darkness.
Speaking on their plight during the protest, Chairman of the community, Taiwo Idowu, explained that the community had been in darkness for some years before the transformer was donated to them by a frontline politician in the state.
He added that the darkness had hampered business activities and also had given men of the underworld opportunities to attack people in the community.
“When we got the transformer, we invited officials of IBEDC, they checked it and certified that it was good for use, so we began to raise money among ourselves for the installation.
“We bought poles, cables and every other thing needed for the installation of the transformer. We have so far spent over N11 million and when the installation was completed in June, we called IBEDC to help with the connection to the national grid.
“We were however shocked when they said that the transformer was a refurbished one, we really could not understand because the IBEDC officials gave us the go-ahead with the installation after conducting checks on the transformer and certifying that it is good
“How could they now turn around and say that the transformer is a refurbished one and therefore they won’t connect us to the grid? We have written several letters to them in Sagamu and Ibadan but nothing has been done.
“Our community for over eight years has been struggling with power challenge and after using our resources to solve this problem, the IBEDC is proving to be the stumbling block again. Our losses over the years due to lack of power are unquantifiable,” he said.
Chief Adeyemo Sofola, the traditional head of the community, said the laxck of power supply to the community had affected the development of the area.
He appealed to Governor Abiodun and the Chairman of Ikenne Local Government Area to prevail on IBEDC to help with the connection of their transformer to the grid.
Reacting to the development however, the Public Relations Officer of IBEDC, Ogun Region, Mr Yomi Bada, said contrary to the claims of the community, the IBEDC was never contacted when the transformer was donated until after the contractor had done the installation.
“What I gathered from my findings with the people in charge was that the community never contacted IBEDC when the transformer was donated until the contractor finished with the installation was about to energise it.
“The technical crew went to check out the transformer and found out that it was a refurbished one, it is not the type of transformer that is even used in the country or that should be in our network and such transformer will never be certified because it is substandard,” he said.
