Residents of Oshodi, Mafoluku, Shogunle, Ewu-Tuntun communities (OMSE) in Oshodi-Isolo Local Government of Lagos State on Wednesday staged a peaceful protest to the Oshodi Business Unit of Ikeja Electric (IE), Okota.
Representatives of these four communities, who chanted solidarity songs at the office of the distribution company, demanded a reversal of “crazy bills”, end to all estimated billing and selling of prepaid metres to customers.
The protesters hoisted some placards with various inscriptions to articulate their demands.
The inscriptions partly read: “No to estimated billing”, “No to metre selling”, “All crazy bills must be reversed “, All our communities must be supplied with prepaid metres”, and “All IE enforcement teams are not allowed to carry out disconnection until further notice”.
Others are: “No to epileptic power supply”, “No more disconnection without Court order”, “No more artificial inflated charges”, “Billing for non-existent or removed analogue metres is prohibited, ” “We need clear communication on billing and payment procedure” among others.
The spokesman for the protesters, Mr Abdul-Rauf Olowora said that the failure of IE to give electricity prepaid metres to customers had brought untold.pains to many homes and businesses.
Olowora said: “In some areas in Mafoluku, there is no light and the funniest part of it is that when the IE officials are to bring their bills, it will be N150,000, N183,000, N200,000 and so on per building, without power supply.
“We do not want this any more. We are here to tell them that enough is enough. We cannot be staying in darkness and still be paying for darkness.
“We don’t want to see MD 1 (what it means we do not know) in our communities. We do not want anything called Band A, Band B, or Band C in our communities any more.
“This is a tactic to continue to shortchange the common man in Nigeria. We are staying no, we do not want it.”
Another leader of the protesters, Mrs Ronke Ajibade urged the government to come to the aid of the poor masses.
“These people (IE) want to kill us. The IE wants to receive all the proceeds of our labour every months. Enough is enough,” Ajibade said.
Speaking after a meeting with the management of the Ikeja Electric, Mr Babatunde Faleye, the Chairman of the four communities, advised the IE to do something about the demands before it would escalate.
According to him, most importantly, the way out is for the IE to provide every residents prepaid meters to settle the lingering problems.
Faleye said: “There is a problem brewing in the communities and our people are tensed now. If the IE does not want a problem to start, the way out now is to get us metres.
“This is generally agreed as the way to go. We hope that the IE lives by its words after our meeting today.”
The chairman, who revealed that both parties had agreed to go by vendor- financing method to get every household metres, said that the IE promised to give feedback of vendors to provide metres on Monday.
He added, “The struggle has just started, it is not ended until a perfect resolution is reached and received.”
Speaking further, Olowora said that the electricity distribution company should be mandated to provide metres to calculate their earnings, just like market women provide measurements for goods they sell.
“Common sense shows that provision of metres should be the sole responsibility of the electricity distribution company to measure their products we are buying.
“It should be made available to the customers without pay.