Thousands of residents of the Mowe, Ibafo and Magboro areas of the Obafemi Owode Local Government Area, Ogun State, on Monday trooped out to protest against the power outage in their communities which they said had lasted for 10 years.
The crowd blocked the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, singing solidarity songs as they created a gridlock which lasted for over two hours.
The placard-carrying group, led by their community leaders, called on the authorities to address their electricity challenge before the rainy season.
Some of the inscriptions on the placards read, ‘Ibadan Disco, you are a failure’, Fashola/IBEDC/NIPP, please give us light’, ‘No light, no work’, ‘NIPP, save Magboro, Ibafo, Mowe communities from darkness’.
They later converged on the frontage of PUNCH place, the corporate headquarters of The PUNCH Nigeria Limited on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The leader of the group, Funsho Ayeni, threatened that if nothing was done to resolve the problem within seven days, they would take drastic measures.
He said, “For the past 10 years, we have not had power supply. We have been treated as if we are not living in Ogun State or we are not citizens of Nigeria. Economic activities have been crumbled. Some people have abandoned their homes.
“And all we are asking for is power supply from the government, but they have refused to heed our cry. On our own, we have bought transformers, cables and poles and spent over N500m, and yet, we have nothing to show for it.
“We have written to the local, state and federal governments on this issue, all to no avail. Recently, we wrote the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, and we didn’t get a response.”
He, however, noted that an electricity project was awarded to a contractor three years ago, adding that the community supported the project with both human and material resources.
He said the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, which was supposed to energise the project, started making excuses.
“Last December, IBEDC promised to energise the project, but after five attempts, the power did not come. We had a meeting with the officials and they said we should wait till December 19, 2015. When nothing happened, we met with them again on December 28, 2015, and they promised January 8, 2016.
“Now, the date has elapsed as well. We are saying enough is enough! In the Mowe area alone, we have over 187 Community Development Associations, and for all of us – Mowe, Magboro, Ibafo – we are well over 500 CDAs. To put us in darkness and ruin our economic activities is wickedness,” he added.
Ayeni said the protest was peaceful because the community leaders prevailed on youths not to foment trouble, adding that they might not be able to guarantee that at the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum.
Another community leader, Rotimi Afolabi, said he had not witnessed power in his community since he moved in six years ago.
“The excuse the IBEDC is giving now is that they are working on it, but for how long? There was a contractor that was sending some workers here at a time. Whenever he sent four workers, we would complement it with additional three workers, just to make things faster and easier, but nothing came out in the end.
“I spend N1,000 on the average per day on fuel to run my generator. We want this addressed before the rains, because once it starts raining heavily, it will be difficult for anything to be done,” he said.
The Chairman of the Electricity Committee, Saola Dauda, said the communities had not felt any impact of government’s presence.
Dauda said everything in the areas was done through community efforts.
He said, “We have almost become a government to ourselves. There is no public school or hospital. The communities built the roads, clinics, drainage channels, schools and even police post. The government has not done anything for us.”
The Regional Communications Officer, IBEDC, Ogun State, Regina Adelokun, could not be reached as of press time.
However, she had told PUNCH Metro in December 16, 2015, that the company was working hard to connect the residents, adding that the operation had been affected by technical glitches.
Adelokun, who said IBEDC could not give a definite time when electricity would be turned on, had appealed to the residents to be patient.
-punchng