Residents of Ayede Akinyemi Ring Road Protest Inability of IBEDC To Replace Their Transformer

Residents of Ayede Akinyemi Ring Road community in Ibadan, Oyo State on Wednesday staged a peaceful protest at the office of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) on Ring Road, Ibadan over their failure to replace their old transformer.

The protesters, who carried placards with various inscriptions such as “IBEDC enjoys PHCN assets, bears PHCN liabilities, enjoys profits but passes responsibility,” “IBEDC takes responsibility for the maintenance of your generating assets,” and so on, said that IBEDC has refused to replace their damaged transformer.

Some of the protesters, Mr Yomi Oguneso, Mr Olawale Funmilayo and Mrs Salako Omodebola said That in an interview that their community has been clamouring for a new transformer from IBEDC since 2019.

“When our old transformer got damaged in 2019, we were asked by the IBEDC to go and repair it and we got a private engineer, Mr. Taiwo to repair it and we paid him #400, 000 (four hundred thousand naira). He engaged some technical personnel from the IBEDC when he was working on the transformer.

“The problem re-occurred and we have been living in total darkness since October 2021 without any remedy.

“Despite several complaints and appeal to the IBEDC, the company is yet to listen to us and this has subjected us to untold hardships with members of our family.

“We are by this protest appealing to the IBEDC once again to replace the transformer.

“We have been cooperating with them in the past, which is why we did not protest before now. Though they have stopped billing us since our transformer developed issues, we don’t want them to slot in the bill whenever the transformer is replaced,” they said.

Reacting to the protest, the Media Relations Manager of IBEDC, Busola Motunrase said that the community was yet to make any official request for the replacement of their old transformer.

She however added that the company will do whatever it could to alleviate the sufferings of the community.

According to her, “customers of IBEDC are kings and what can we gain from keeping our customers in perpetual darkness. So we are going to find a solution to this matter.

“But ideally, an official report should have been made with a request for a new one.

“We cannot run away from the fact that paucity of funds is a big challenge for all DisCos in Nigeria, not just IBEDC.

“We are not running away from our rights and responsibilities to do what they want but we want them to be patient.

“We have a long list of requests for new transformers from many communities. We will get to them one after the other, but in cases where we cannot provide a new transformer, we will do whatever we can to backfeed the community.

“We will join them to other communities with transformers that are less populated to solve issues.”

On the allegation that a private contractor collected #400,000 (four hundred thousand naira) to fix the transformer of the community, the IBEDC spokesperson said that the company did not have anything to do with Eng. Taiwo.

“I don’t know him. He is not a staff of IBEDC. There is a procedure to follow if a transformer is faulty – make a formal complaint so that nobody will shortchange you.

“Eng. Taiwo is not our staff and I cannot hold brief for the person I don’t know.

“When anything happens, the communities should follow proper channels so that they will not be swindled of their hard-earned money. IBEDC did not ask them to contribute any money,” she said.

-Kunle Bakare.