The Africa Anti-Slavery Coalition (AASLAC) has urged the National Assembly to invoke its powers of oversight and organise a public hearing in Lagos to save thousands of residents from alleged extortion by electricity distribution companies (DisCos) through the prepaid metering system.

The coalition, in a statement yesterday, lamented that the prepaid metering system, intended to bring succour to electricity consumers by ensuring that they pay for what they consume, had become a source of “intolerable extortion by DisCos.”

AASLAC’s Convener, Tony Masha, implored the federal lawmakers to pay unscheduled visits to the Lagos offices of the power firms to see things for themselves.

He said as part of the sanitisation process, the National Assembly should visit DisCos offices nationwide, and entertain the tale of woes by Nigerians.

According to him, the prevailing practice in parts of Lagos metropolis is for “DisCos to lure unsuspecting consumers to fill out forms for prepaid meters, and once that has been done, bills will begin to accumulate whether the prepaid meters were installed or not.”

He continued: “Thus, consumers are trapped through this fraudulent method, into accumulating debts running into hundreds of thousands of naira for prepaid meters that were never installed, let alone connected to the residences of those concerned. This is very unfortunate and must stop.”