Youths, women, men and residents of Naze, Ulakwo and environs of Owerri North local council; Nekede and environs of Owerri West local council of Imo State yesterday, protested what they called incessant power outages in their communities by the authorities of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), without explanations to them.
Expressing their grievances on the streets, they demanded immediate rectifying and restoration of supply to their homes and business outfits in their communities. The communities, The Guardian learnt, were nearer to the Owerri capital city.
Speaking with The Guardian the restive protesters accused the officials of the power supply company of their inability to supply them with power since Easter without any known reason.
They regretted that few attempts made to restore supply were not more than five minutes on each occasion.
In their numbers, they threatened to take lawful action beyond complaints if such scenarios continued.
One of them who simply identified himself as Okechukwu, informed that the famous Timber Shade, Alaba International Market, among other avalanche of economic activities sustaining the state substantially were sited in the area among other revenue yielding ventures, regretting that billions of naira had been lost since over one week without explanation, they had experience power outage.
He complained: “This is disgusting and very annoying that we have wasted a lot of resources and businesses slowed down since power outages in our large communities. Imagine them supplying power for only five minutes. Sometimes, they flash it. The most annoying part is the EEDC’s inability to explain to us the reasons for all these. We are paying our bills promptly. There are huge economic and revenue yielding ventures here such as the Timber Shade; the Alaba International Market; the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, the Anambra Imo River Basin Development Authority (AIRBDA), among others.”
Another community leader, Igwe, complained that the communities were neglected in regular power supply, urging “the headquarters of the power company to intervene and promptly restore power else they would be pushed to the walls.”
Efforts made to reach the corporate affairs officer of the EEDC, Emeka Eze, to hear the company’s side were unsuccessful as his phone was not reachable as at press time.
