Anambra community protests six years of power outage

The Ukpor Community, the headquarters of Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, embarked on a protest on Friday over the town’s more than six-year power outage.

The protesters, who trooped out to the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) office in the area, chanted solidarity songs and displayed placards with varying inscriptions.

Some of the inscriptions read: “EEDC gives us prepared metres,” “Small-scale businesses in Ukpor have all closed,” “EEDC helps our students, give them light to read at night,” and “No to EEDC darkness in Ukpor.”

The people accused the electricity company of carting away their transformers on the pretext of refurbishing them and demanded their immediate return.

The Chairperson of the Ukpor Electricity Consumers Committee, Nkwadochukwu Onwughalu, accused EEDC of deliberately blacklisting the community for over six years.

He said that EEDC disconnected the community from the industrial line, took five transformers away from the community, and later returned two.

Mr Onwughalu also accused EEDC of bulk billing electricity consumers in Ukpor and vandalism of their transformers.

“The administration of Willie Obiano intervened in the power crisis in Ukpor and put us in the industrial line but immediately he left office, EEDC disconnected us.

“We have five transformers that got bad, EEDC claimed they were taking them away to refurbish.

“They returned only two and took the remaining three and installed them in another community, leaving us in darkness.

Another protester, Valentine Ifechigha, said it was unacceptable that the community would pay for services it did not enjoy.

Mr Ifechigha, the leader of Ukpor Zone 3, said they were asking for the return of the transformers taken from the community.

“Return the community to 33kVA line, installed in 2017, and issue prepaid metres to individual consumers.”

He said they would no longer pay electricity bills since they were not getting supply.

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Pius Onyeanusi, an entrepreneur, said he had shut down his water factory due to the prolonged power outage.

Mr Onyeanusi said, “I had 25 workers, but they have stopped working because we are no longer producing.”

The EEDC Business District Manager, Evaristus Obeta, who received the protesters, said he would inform the company’s management of their grievances.

He declined to comment on the issues raised by the protesters, especially the alleged removal of their transformers.

(NAN)