Ondo community bemoans five months outage, insecurity

Residents of Irese Town in Ifedore Local Council of Ondo State, yesterday, protested against five months electricity blackout in their community.

The residents, who were mainly youths of the community, barricaded the major roads with woods, benches and tables for several hours, leading to anxiety as shop owners hurriedly closed their shops.

They also obstructed the movement of vehicles and motorcycles from coming and entering the town, berating the authorities of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for being insensitive to their plight.

A resident of the community, Ifeoluwa Olomofe, said the darkness, which enveloped the community, had increased the level of insecurity, thereby necessitating the protest.

Olomofe, who lamented that the community had been in total darkness for over five months, said that the power outage had adversely affected businesses in the community.

“As it is now, we would not open the road until our plight is addressed because we are suffering and there is no development here. They should listen to us,” she said.

MEANWHILE, the BEDC Spokesman, Akure Branch, Mr. Michael Barnabas, said the transformers in the community were damaged by vandals who stole some oil from them, noting that the issue would soon be resolved.

“The truth is that the transformers in the community were vandalised and we have provided five drums of oil for a replacement for you to know how committed we are to restoring electricity to the town.

“It is not that we are not aware of the challenges they are facing, very soon, we will replace the transformers. We will just appeal to them to be patient with us,” he said.