NUF Urges President Buhari to Urgently Address The Poor Power Supply Affecting The Nation …as electricity tariff goes up

By: Ovedhe Jerry

Nigeria United Front (NUF), a non-governmental organization on power and energy has called on President Mohammadu Buhari to urgently address the poor power supply affecting the nation.

The group made this call through its President, Hon. Johnbull Okoro while briefing newsmen on the high estimated bills imposed on customers by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), noting that even when there is no power supply to the people, BEDC will still bring bills forcing customers to pay for services not render, adding that “this has crippled business activities that solely rely on power, e.g. Hotels, welders, etc”.

“Instead of BEDC to give out prepaid meters free of charge to its customers, they   are compelling customers to pay for the meters. Even the faulty meters are not being repaired by BEDC. BEDC management should explain to the public the fix charge they are collecting from customers ranging from #500-#1500 per customer. This money was supposed to be for maintaining faulty meters. I regard this as illegal and not acceptable”.

“Going by the recent publication made on Urhobo Times Newspaper, on the 10^th page 2, mentioning that BEDC has commissioned over 20 injection   sub-station, is a clear indication of incompetent. Because 20 injection sub-station cannot carry one state under BEDC jurisdiction not to talk of four states, namely: Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta respectively”.

“Injection sub-station means a step down, how can they come out and tell Nigerians that they have commissioned 20 injections sub-stations that cannot carry Delta state that have 25 local governments”.

“NUF is also aware of so many broken electrical poles and cut down wires that BEDC has refuse to repair. And this is their sole responsibilities, to carry out the repair whenever the need arises. Nigerians can no longer tolerates all this fake excuses given by BEDC. So many lives are put in danger as a result of these damages”.

The President also commended the efforts of various voluntary organizations, local vigilantes in collaborating with security operatives in eradicating transformers, cables and power line vandalization.

He therefore called on President Mohammadu Buhari to urgently revoke BEDC license of operation so as to restore normality to peoples life in the affected states, noting that “in so doing the nation will be on their road for social-economic development”.