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By Madu Obi
No fewer than 500 residents of Ukpor, the headquarters of Nnewi South, have stormed the Nnewi office of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, to protest seven years of almost blackout and refusal of the company to provide prepared meters to electricity consumers in the area.
The protesters, comprising men, women and youths of all ages, waved placards with various inscriptions and urged authorities of EEDC to return the community to the industrial line that was commissioned in the community seven years ago.
Chairman of Ukpor Electricity Consumers Association, Mr. Nkwadochukwuka Onwughalu, who spoke on behalf of the community urged EEDC to return the transformers it collected from the community.
He said that the people of Ukpor decided to protest as they could no longer bear the suffering.
He said: "Based on issues we have with EEDC in the past, we decided to protest to drive home what the company has been doing in our community.
On November 23, 2017, former Governor Willie Obiano commissioned an electricity industrial line in Ukpor, but barely three months after the commissioning, EEDC removed us from the line without informing us. The reason they later gave was that our line was tripping their line. They promised to import auto closure that would stop the line from breaking their network.
When we complained, they assured us that the industrial line would soon be restored. After one year of waiting, they said we could buy the auto closure which is about N10 million. We later wrote EEDC that we were ready to buy it and donate to them for our use to enable them return us to the industrial line. Since 2020, we have been writing EEDC and up till now, they have kept us in darkness.
All the industries in Ukpor have closed down and as a result, crime in our community has been on the increase because there are no jobs for our youths.
Again, EEDC collected three transformers from Ukpor for repairs, only to divert them to other areas after the repair. In March this year, they said we should give them 90 days to return the transformers and the 90 days has since elapsed.
We wrote the Managing Director and threatened to to embark on protest, yet there was no response because they apparently want us to protect.
Another demand we are making is that we want EEDC to give us individual prepaid meters, but they told us that 80/% of the consumers must be ready to buy the meters before they could provide them to us.
Our people have insisted that they cannot be paying for the electricity we did not consume. We therefore decided that we will be protesting at EEDC Nnewi office every Friday until our demands are met."
In his response, the Nnewi Business District Manager of EEDC, Mr. Evaristus Obeta promised to relate their grievances to the management.
He also commended the people for being peaceful during the protest.
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