Residents of Ijebu-Ijesa community in Oriade Local Government Area of Osun State on Tuesday called on the representatives of their area like...
Residents of Ijebu-Ijesa community in Oriade Local Government Area of Osun State on Tuesday called on the representatives of their area like Senator Babajide Omoworare, Hon. Oluwole Oke, Hon. Israel Aloba and other well meaning Nigerians to come to their aids as the entire community have been in darkness for over one year.
This call was made by the residents who were guarded by the security personnel during their protest against the protracted one year black out by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) in the area.
The large numbers of protesters in a convoy of vehicles, motorcycles as well as pedestrians walked through the major streets of the town beginning from Oke-Eruru chanting anti-IBEDC songs and armed with placards with various inscriptions.
Speaking with Journalists, one of the community leaders, Venerable
Fatokun Julius of Ijesa North Anglican Diocese, Ijebu Ijesa said, “we
started experiencing epileptic power supply sometimes in 2015 to early
part of 2016. We started experiencing total black out from August 2016
and we have since then remain in darkness. All efforts to get the
electricity restored proved abortive. Even when the community took it
upon itself to see whether they can facilitate repair s to the damaged
transformer to bring some succor, we couldn’t still have our ways due
to logistic and bottle necked of the IBDEC..
On efforts made to get light for the community on the part of the
leaders, Venerable Fatokun said, “we have done a lot, we have waited
for them for so long but when we waited for long without any fruitful
outcome, then we went to sought for their permission to go and
undertake repairs on the damaged transformer since they told us that
there is no transformer anywhere. So we agreed in confidence to repair
the damaged one, which we did. After the first effort failed, we came
to IBDEC in Ijebu Ijesa and they recommended another contractor whom
they said repaired that of Kajola in Ilesa which is still working till date We paid Six hundred thousand Naira (N600,000) to the contractor and up trill today they have been dribbling us. So, we came back to our community and had a meeting to know the next step to take thinking of who can help us. We have engaged people to talk to our political
office holders but no response till date.
He added that, “the IBDEC later cut off our lights, restore light to some areas like Oba’s palace, filling stations where they can generate more money. We are making efforts tirelessly to get our lights
restored but all to no avail. We went to Oba in council to complain and the council gave us Chief Inurin, who went with us to Ibadan IBDEC to lodge our complaint but later discovered that no complaint was lodged by IBDEC, Ijebu Ijesa to their office in Ibadan and they kept raising our hope.
We have been to the Regional headquarters in Osogbo where we found out that IBDEC Ijebu Ijesa lodged complaint but nothing has been done on it. The resort to generate over Six million Naira (N6000,000) monthly has made IBDEC to cut about four communities off and concentrated their efforts on the few where they double their tariffs"
Some of the inscriptions during the protest reads; “IBDEC RESTORE OUR LIGHT” ; “365 days
Today without light at Oke-Eruru, Odogo, Odo-Ese”; “Part of Egboro land has been dislocated; “Hon Raji Fashola what are you doing?”; “We don’t want Okada again, give us light”; “As from now, no light, no IBDEC in Ijebu Ijesa.”; “All businesses crippled for over one year”.
While commenting during a telephone chat, Kikelomo Owoeye, who spoke unbehalf of IBDEC appealed to the residents to demonstrate patience and restraint saying their request is on the front burner of her organization. She disclosed that her organization doesn’t have transformers now but they are treating their requests as several communities are making their
requests to them.
She expressed fear and concern for their staff that ran away from office in Ijebu IOjesa when the protesters were on their way as she said that violence might arise from the protest.
On the issue of over one million Naira (N1000,000) allegedly spent by the community on repairs of transformer through Mr. Babajide Olore, IBDEC undertaking Manager in Ijebu Ijesa, she said that her organization is not in any way involved in collecting money from
clients. She added that series of meetings had been held with the
monarch and different stakeholders in getting solution to the crisis.
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