By Desire Emmanuel
The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election in Ogun State, Mr Oladipo Adebutu, has been accused of donating a refurbished and substandard transformer to the people of a community in the Ilishan area of the state.
The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) disclosed this while reacting to the protest by the people of Ire Akari community who said the distribution company refused to connect the transformer to the national grid after they had spent more than N11 million to install it.
The community held a protest on Saturday, accusing IBEDC of abandoning them while also appealing to Governor Dapo Abiodun to intervene on their behalf in ensuring that the electricity distribution company does the needful and save them from darkness.
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 the politician,
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.”
However, reacting to the protest, the IBEDC, through its Public Relations Officer, 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.
He said: “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 and 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.”
